


Waiting in the Wings

by Ivies_writings (madnauseum)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Love Triangles, Self-Esteem Issues, Unrequited Love, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-06 13:10:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 37
Words: 39,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1859229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madnauseum/pseuds/Ivies_writings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lena knows nothing, she'll confess to you. Not about Dean Winchester, the famous rock star nor his lead guitarist, Castiel Novak and least of all about herself. All she knows is that something isn't right and she needs to fix it- and soon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, you read that right. 37 chapters. They are all pretty short in length and never fear the work is already written, it just needs to be edited as I go. Thanks for reading!

I don’t think I’m dumb or stupid. Not in the slightest. But I think there’s this blockage in the part of brain that handles common sense. Or emotions. Or making sense of emotions. Rationalization. I'll just leave it at that.

I didn’t know when or how it started. It just did. Like a gradual incline you can't see you're climbing until you look back and see the drop off. I thought maybe if I held out, held on, holed up… things might have turned out the way I wanted them to.

Of course they didn’t.

How could they?

Did they ever?

Not hardly.

I got mixed up with theater people in high school by accident. I was dating a boy who turned out to love boy parts rather than the girlie parts that I was proud to have. I was okay with that. He turned out to be one of the best friends I’ve ever had in my entire life.

Consequently, he was an awesome singer, an even greater dancer and if I was ever to spend any time with him, I had to be in theater too. Except I was gangly and awkward, and I squawked when I sang. So I worked backstage. I made things. I built sets, fixed lights, and zipped zippers during performances. By the time I graduated I had done nothing more with my life than lived and breathed for the next performance. So when college called and I answered, I said, “Theater major, please” with no regrets.

I still don’t regret my time there in college. Sure, it was blur. Sure, I was drunk most of the time. It gave me a great foundation for dealing with different stages, advanced technology, and inflated egos.

At 21 I got my first roadie gig for a girl punk band. They were the most relaxed bunch of girls I ever met, and only one of them was really a bitch. The rest of them treated the entire traveling group as one big happy family. Things only began to get hairy when it seemed everywhere we went our ratio of good looking guys got smaller and smaller.

I was mesmerized the first time I met Dean Winchester. There was something about him that absolutely captivated me, and it wasn't because he had his head hung over a toilet and was vomiting into it. So no, that wasn't it. You know those pretty athletic types who hit a stage just because they are addicted to any kind of attention they can get? Yeah, that wasn't Dean Winchester either. And that surprised me because that's what I totally had him pegged for.

He is smaller in person than I thought he'd be. I ended up watching his early performances via YouTube after Ash-man told me who he was playing drums for. But it still kind of shocked me. I figured he'd be bigger. Though, with him lying over the toilet, I didn't get a look at his full height anyway.

I went to high school with Ash-man. I'm not exactly sure how he got the nickname Ash-man, other than someone thought it would be funny if they made his name sound like Ass-man. Uncreative, trust me I know. We didn't run in the same circles, but they kinda bumped together now and then. He almost always played in the orchestra for the musicals and was always invited to after parties, just like I was. But on the rungs of high school social status, my view was much closer to the ground than his was.

There's a lot about this whole experience I don't remember. Like part of me was trying to forget. I don't ever remember being formally introduced to Cas Novak. I think the first time I saw him, he was drunk out of his mind as well. Since Winchester had the bathroom occupied, Novak took it upon himself to piss in the bushes, two feet away from me. After that, he was just kind of always there.

One day I'm on stage resetting all the sound controls because Sam thinks it's hilarious to watch me have to reset them all for each show. Novak appears at my side just as I'm about finished and I've sworn under my breath that if Sam does this again he'll have to piss through a straw just to relieve himself. Fuck the fact that he was a Winchester too.

I don't say anything though as Cas is standing there, completely sober for what seems like the 30th day in a row. They say he's quit drinking. I'm not sure I believe that much. Some people are just really good at hiding it. Or they've been drunk so long they don't even seem intoxicated anymore.

He says to me, "You know he hates you, right?"

I don't get defensive right away because part of me knows this. Part of me has always known it. But I also know that Novak just tries to have my back. He tries to protect me. I don't think he thinks he's that obvious about it, but I can tell.

I don’t respond. At least not right away.

“Lena.”

He knows when the fresh bruises appear.

It pisses him off.

I pass it off. "There's no way he hates me. He wouldn't... you know, if he did."

"But he could and he does," Cas says philosophically. Like only he can.

My back bristles. I get angry. These are things I don't want to hear and I won't listen to them. So I say the only thing I know that would drive him away. I know because he's just like me.

"Jealous much, Novak?"

He turned and walked away, but this victory is bittersweet like it usually is.

The secret here is that there are no secrets. Everyone knows. Everyone sees. It's a testament to what a close knit group we are... Or how loose our lips get when we drink. Which is a lot.

Winchester calls my name and I know what he wants before performance tonight. A shiver splits me in two. I dread _and_ crave it.

I’m the only girl on a tour full of guys and I swear to myself that someday Ash-man will pay dearly for the pain that he’s caused me. If only I didn’t enjoy it so damn much. In his eyes he’s done a good thing. He found his band a techie when there was no one to be found. And let’s be honest. I’m damn good at what I do.

It’s what I’m not good at that has me questioning my intelligence. That has me wondering if I was born without the code that deciphers my emotions and makes rational decisions based on these evaluations.

All I know is that I can’t leave. But I really shouldn’t stay.


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena discusses a little more about herself and her family.

My name is Lena. I was the first woman in my family to go to college and graduate. Chuck might have made it to college, except he was far more interested in video games and weed.

When I was 13 and my brother was 19, he rolled a four-wheeler over himself. He has been paralyzed from the waist down ever since. Guess who gets to do what he loves for a living now?

I think that if he had rolled that ATV anytime later, I never would have made it out of the trailer park. But because I was young enough to have drilled into my head that I would never be able to receive help from my parents, they already had their hands full you see, I wouldn’t have turned my grades around. I would have never made the Honor Roll 15 out of 16 grading periods in high school, graduated in the top ten of my class and gotten the theater scholarship I needed.

Don’t get me wrong. The trailer park, as small and as obscured as it may have been, still existed. In that community we were branded. It didn’t matter if our families had less debt, lived on less, and were generally happier, all of which I can’t really say with any amount of certainty, we were still looked down upon.

Maybe part of me always tried to escape that mentality. The mentality that no matter how far I got, no matter what I did, or even who I dated, I would always be one of the girls from the trailer park.

I thought I knew better. There have been periods in my life that I’ve forgotten my roots, my beginnings, my family. I would live life the way I thought life ought to be lived and made the most of my existence. But then something would happen to remind me that I was the stepping stone, the building block, the utility stool that held up the rich, the famous, and the talented.

Some of this crossed my mind the first time Winchester’s lips sucked on the flesh of my neck. His hands pushed my bra up over my already sensitive nipples just begging and screaming for attention.

Just like Justin did my Junior year. He was the senior starting quarterback who wanted more attention than one human could possibly need and he had the lead. He was gorgeous. Had a surprisingly great voice, and moved much like he did on the field with swift precise grace.

After practice one night I was putting props away and he asked me for the vase and the flowers he needed for scene three. Except when I turned to get them his hand grabbed my ass. When I turned around to tell him to get the fuck off, he kissed me.

Again

And again.

And again.

Always in the wings of the empty theater.

Always incredibly hot.

Like Winchester, except Winchester never kisses me.

When the production was over, Justin and I never said another word to each other. I’d catch him look at me in the hall once in a while. The smirk would grace the perfect mouth I’d kissed and I’d know he was remembering.

Don’t think I’m easy, because I’m not. It just always seemed I was worth boys’ time when I was working on a new production. After, I would still be single. After, me and Ty would spend our time studying or looking for new cute boys to ogle over.

The first time, Winchester whispered in my ear, “I just need to get off. You help me do that, there’ll be something in it for you.”

“An orgasm?” I snarked back.

“No…” He licked a trail from my collar bone back up underneath my ear. “There’ll be a next time.”

I almost cracked him across the mouth. Punched him in the stomach. Took a knee to his nut sac.

He twisted a nipple in his fingers and I whimpered. I remembered how he looked on stage, like he could take on the world, like he could be him and you and me and everyone else. Like he could be God.

He was that good.

Much better than Justin.

Justin ended up in the trailer park.

Dean was this one person on the outside. This shell of a person who looked like he was 20,000 leagues deep with a soul picked by Jesus himself. I saw more of the empty shell on the inside. The side that hated, the side that loathed. The side that needed a release or he would explode all over his fan base which would eventually leave him without one.

So I was the utility stool. I proclaimed myself the utility stepping stool because I believed in the product. I believed in him. I believed that somewhere deep inside this man was one who didn’t need all the facades, who lived and loved and felt and was everything in the songs he sang.

So when he touched me, I loved it. But he touched me to hear me cry out. He touched me to push his pleasure further. He touched me because his cock was rock hard and he needed to cum all over me.

Leaving me to clean up the mess.

Leaving him to be on his way.

That first time he said, “Lift up your shirt Lena. Keep it up.”

He wasted no time unbuttoning my jeans and shoving everything down to the floor so he’d have an unobstructed view. Luckily for me, I was trim. Less than trim. I was damn near scrawny. Anorexic.

And I wore baggy clothes.

His head buried into my shoulder, just the right height for him. Every now and then he’d let the tip of his cock brush over the skin of my belly leaving a smear of pre-cum and then he’d groan.

I tucked my shirt around my bra and let my body rest back against the wall. Then I slid my fingers down to touch myself. He didn’t notice until my breathing became labored, jagged.

Just like his.

“Say it,” he commanded.

God those were the sexiest words I ever heard, hotter than anything I'd ever been told by anyone of the opposite sex.

“Fuck, I want you,” I breathed.

“Again.”

“I want you,” I repeated until I couldn’t.

I moaned into his ear and he in mine as we enjoyed our separate orgasms, my free hand helping to catch the frustration that was coating the skin of my belly while his hand continued to pump over himself furiously.

He leaned against me for a second, and I could do nothing but take his weight. I wanted eye contact. I wanted… something.

He lifted off of me, put himself back in his pants and walked away to find the restroom two doors down.

I lifted my pants and ducked into the restroom _three_ doors down.

After I cleaned him off of me, I cried and told myself it was the last time.

The last time I’d let myself cry about it.

Justin… he never made me cry.


	3. Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena's self esteem compared to the girl-next-door appeal of Winchester's actress girlfriend.

Pretty. Beautiful. Gorgeous.

Ty used to tell me that I was unfortunate looking. It was okay coming from Ty because at least I knew he was being honest. He didn’t say it to hurt me, just like when I would tell him he looked much better in eyeliner than I did.

He’d put his hands on his skinny little hips, as he studied my face, his pallets of make-up spread before him trying to decide what to do to my face to make it look… normal.

I’d always known that my features would never be considered cute, but a girl could dream, right? Ty would work his magic and then I would be upgraded to presentable at best.

I was from Ukrainian descent and apparently not the good side of Ukraine where models, actresses and those women on the foreign bride websites reside.

My hair was thick and coarse, my eyes too wide for my face, my nose a lumpy mess in the middle. My best feature I always thought were these thick full lips I had. That is if you could see them under my nose.

Winchester’s girlfriend was beautiful in a way that made you want to steal an extra second glance just to try to catch her not being beautiful. She was like the girl next door, pumped up on steroids. Minus the muscles. She had the perfect bow mouth, the most adorable button nose. Worst of all, she was _nice_.

Much unlike Tracy Seibert. Out of all the productions I worked on in college, she starred in over half of them. She was the big fish. She was the star. She was angelic. She was so beautiful. She had perfectly white straight teeth and a smile that photographers couldn’t get enough of. Her long flowing brown hair had body and shine, and her eyes always sparkled like diamonds.

She was the biggest bitch I ever knew.

Whenever Winchester’s girlfriend joined tour, there wasn’t a single person whose mood wasn’t shifted or lifted somehow. The boys all smiled more, Winchester’s mood went from sour and bitter to joyful and, dare I say, exuberant. But she was an up and coming actress, and it didn’t hurt her career to have one of the most loved front men as her boyfriend. She was getting new projects left and right and the time she spent on the tour dwindled.

The longer she was away, the more attention I got from Winchester.

Tracy Seibert made me her bitch the first performance we ever worked on together. Maybe I was naïve, but I made sure she had everything she demanded and more on top of all of my own work I needed to do. By the last performance, I realized she never once told me thank you.

I realized then that not all attention is positive.

The next show me and Tracy Seibert worked on together, the first words out of her mouth to me were, “I prefer Chai lattes now, and I expect one before each rehearsal.”

I told her to go to hell and to find herself another slave.

I told her she wasn’t worth my time.

I would let Winchester lead me where ever it was he wanted me to go again and again.

He said I looked just like her… the actress… from the neck down.

Ty just laughed when I called him one night to tell him. “I never said you didn’t have a knockout body, Lena honey. Because you do! You just hide it with your pony tail and more material than even Rosie O’Donnell needs for a toga!”

I told him, “I can’t help it that my work doesn’t condone the wearing of stilettos!”

“And thank God for that! You have a hard enough time walking in sneakers.”

In a moment of self-pity I said aloud, “I want to be beautiful too.”

I heard Ty sigh on the other end of the phone and make ticking noise against his teeth. “Lena, you are the most beautiful woman I know. An ounce of your heart is more beautiful than Angelina’s lips. Now you think about that.”

“But I have lips like Angelina… it’s just no one can see them…”

“You’re missing the point,” he said dropping his flamboyancy for just a moment.

It was times like these that he reminded me of Ty, my shy and awkward boyfriend, before he confessed to me and the world that he was gay.

“I love you because you are beautiful on the inside. There are days that I wish I was as beautiful as you. Don’t. _Do not_ … sell yourself short.”

I wiped away a tear and whispered, “Thank you.”

We went on to talk about pin striping and lighting techniques.

I think there was a part of Winchester that believed that he was the man he showed the world when he was with the actress. She made his insides beautiful for him so that he wouldn’t have to do it himself. Hell, he might have even felt better about himself when she was around.

 _I_ felt better about myself when she was around.

When I told Tracy Seibert to go to hell, she told me, “You are a nobody. No name, no face, just a thing. You will never get anywhere in life because you don’t even exist.”

When the actress wasn’t around, Winchester would pull me to his bunk or his hotel room or where ever we could hide so that he could cover my face, straddle my body and use it.

Maybe Tracy was right.

But on opening night I paid the lead actor to step on the tulle of her dress when I “accidentally” forgot to pin her strapless dress together at the top. She left me alone after that.

With Winchester, I forget I exist because I'm enamored with him enough to let him convince me.


	4. Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena thinks about being in a car accident compared to a very important kiss.

Life has this way of toying with the rate of time expenditure. Depending on the activity or who I was with, time would either slow to a crawl or fly screaming by.

In most classes through high school, time would drag. It would tick so slowly that I could sit and count each agonizing second as it passed. But then in the evenings I would go home, teach myself 3 lessons ahead and it would be time for bed before I knew it.

Time with Novak was slow. Slower than sloths, slow. When I was with Novak, time stopped. Occasionally time reversed.

With Dean, time raced by. It was odd because we never talked. Talking always speeds up time for me. Usually.

Not that Novak and I talked much either, but it was different with Dean.

The girls from crew I hung out with when Ty was being a star, well, that was just agonizing the whole way around.

Ty was always fun. Time slipped past me when I was with Ty. I think it was because Ty was such a good conversationalist. He still is. He knows how to read people, draw them into what he’s saying and then be able to listen like he’s honestly interested.

My point is time would pass in greatly varying degrees.

 

When I was 17, I was in a car accident. I had been a passenger in the back of an economy sized car when the girl driving decided that it would be interesting to see what would happen if she hit a dirt embankment at 45mph.

45 days after Novak swore off all drinking that I had yet to acknowledge properly, I had the same kind of moment.

My eyes were open. I felt my heart racing because I knew what would inevitably happen. I screamed. Or I thought I screamed because the noise in my head sounded so much like that. But here's where it got curious.

The world went all Matrix on me and if only I could have gotten my body to respond, I knew in my head that I could have gotten my body out of harm's way because time had slowed down so much that it stopped. I had time in the palms of my hands. I had the time to duck or dodge or run from what's coming if only I could have gotten my body on the same page as my head.

I saw the dirt bank, felt it coming way before I thought Karen saw it coming. I saw the signs that I think she missed and she didn't listen to me when I said slow down. So when I felt we were going too fast hurling toward the dirt like a rock in space, I couldn't do anything but duck.

I was crying. Even now I'm really not sure why. It could have been I was drunk. In fact that sounds pretty accurate. And pretty probable since I'm the weepy type of drunk. Oh don't be surprised. I think everyone knows what kind of drunk they are.

He had his hands on either of my shoulders, pressing them against the cold brick wall behind me. Because if he didn't, I think we both know I was going to collapse into the puddle around the soles of my shoes as rain poured down around us.

I remember looking up once, through the blur of my tears, to see the street light above us. I blinked once and the view became clear. I could see each individual drop as it hurled toward the earth like a million tiny rocks through space. Like a million tiny bugs who instead of buzzing around the light haphazardly decided to coordinate in one effort in a mass suicide toward the ground. Slow motion.

 

"Lena," a fire fighter or EMT called to me.

"Lena," Novak called to me.

In both counts, just after time stopped, I stopped existing in my body. My mind went somewhere else, it left or shut down. I'm chalking them both up as purely physical reactions rather than conscious decisions. Though as the car lay on its side, there was no being conscious about it.

With Cas that night, I was numb all the way down to my toes in my rain soaked shoes.

In the back of that car that was getting pried open like a tin can all I could do was lay there. Everything hurt. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to look, it hurt to move.

Once time sped up again and I knew that time was ticking by I felt lost and left behind. Like that one moment in time would change me so entirely that I lost time in the rebound.

But I wasn't really changed so much.

I'd been what I always thought I'd be... Just fine.

One quick trip to the ER later and I was just bruised up real good. Karen ended up with raccoon eyes from taking out the rearview mirror with her face.

I'm not sure how Cas turned out, whether he had been unscathed and let it slide down his back like the rain did off his leather jacket that night.

I remember hearing his voice while watching the rain in slow motion. I knew what would be coming next. I saw it coming a mile away because time had stopped. Time stopped and gave me the chance to scream to duck or dodge or run away, but I couldn't.

My body, my drunk body, didn't even have enough coordination to stand on its own two feet let alone run.

He was my rock. He was my rock in space hurling toward me.

Those crystal blue eyes bore into mine.

"Lena, come back with me."

I couldn't even scream, the sound in my head so deafening.

But his tongue peeked between his lips, and his eyes found my lips.

All I could do was slide my eyes shut... Like in the car, waiting for the inevitable.

And then he kissed me.


	5. Part 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena thinks back to her time as teacher's pet and how Winchester's fans have come to think of her.

It always surprises me when I figure out that people are jealous of me.

Who would want to be jealous of me? Seriously?

To get these “perks” that everyone else coveted, I busted my ass to get.

Especially in Math. It would be nothing for me to get three chapters ahead in Pre-calculus.

Wait. Stop. Don't think I'm a genius.

Without many friends, without much to do in non-theater season, I could spend the hours re-teaching myself the lesson my teacher would miserably fail in delivering.

Oh the spiteful looks I would get when I could answer Mr. Markham's questions correctly. Particularly, since I refused to tutor people.

I know most of the girls would kill to have my ambition in Pre-calc. Sneers would mask their faces when they saw the light in Mr. Markham’s eyes as I became the only student in the classroom who could answer questions correctly.

Because every young girl wanted Mr. Markham’s attention.

Like Winchester.

So when it got to a point where I was 5 lessons ahead, Mr. Markham kept me after class one day.

“You’re doing remarkably well in my class, Miss Spektor.”

“Yes, sir?”

He sat on his desk putting only one of his perfectly sculpted cheeks there, leaving a foot flat on the floor. What? I was a teenage girl too. I had eyes.

“I’m very curious about your study habits.”

“I have to be honest sir, I’m teaching myself the lessons from the book.”

He chuckled. He was amused. I couldn't have cared less if I pissed him off.

“Really?” His eyes sparkled. “I’m not all that surprised actually.”

“Well, it’s just your lessons get a little confusing even for me and I’m already 5 chapters ahead.”

He looked down nervously at his papers on his desk. Then back up at me with an idea brewing in his head. I could see it swirling there.

“Would you be willing to start a tutoring group?”

“No.”

“Lena.”

“I…In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not the ‘group’ type.”

On most occasions when I stepped from the guys’ bus, I was a mess. It was strikingly obvious the way my lips were red and swollen from my own teeth, the glazed look in my eye, the way my hair teased around my head, and the guilty look on my face.

Always giving in, never getting the more that I hoped would come.

They knew.

The fans were always there. They knew which bus was the guys’ bus, which one I was supposed to be on. They kept tabs on who had gone on and off each bus, and it was no secret that I would go on after everyone had come off besides Dean. Then I would exit again. And then he would finally exit.

I would get the dirtiest looks from them.

I had something they would never get.

Little did they know how it paled in comparison to what I wanted.

So Mr. Markham asked me, “Would you teach me, Lena?”

I think my mouth hung open, and I blinked a few times.

“I’m… I’m not so full of myself that I know when I need schooled. If there’s some way you can show me how to teach this better so that everyone can understand… I would really appreciate it.”

Twice a week, during lunch, I would go to Mr. Markham’s room and tell him how to make his lessons better. To dumb it down, because that’s really all he had to do. He was genius himself, and after years and years of college he forgot that teenagers just don’t think that far in advance. Most of us can barely think past lunch.

A month later we were still meeting for lunch. Three times a week by then.

It was about then that I got the snide remarks. Then there were the whispers behind my back when I stood at my locker.

They knew.

Mr. Markham glanced at me more often in class. I blushed a little bit more when he would say what I said about the lesson to the class. It made him more popular, his students learned better and he was grateful to me.

One day he brought us both lunch. Over a couple of turkey sandwiches on whole wheat he asked me about my life. So I told him. Just about everything. Except the part where I’d kissed Ty and he turned out gay.

On another day, he sat closer to me. And he looked at me. I knew it should have made me uncomfortable. But it didn’t. It just didn’t.

So after that, he would take my hand and tell me that I had the brightest future of any student he ever taught.

He would put his arm around my shoulders as he walked me out of the classroom after our lunch “dates.”

That’s as far as it went. At the end of the year he gave me a brand new Texas Instruments scientific calculator, because mine was hand me down from Chuck who used it as a baseball bat. Mr. Markham said it was his way of saying thanks.

But the damage had been done.

And I didn't need the extra attention.

The other girls had seen. Most ignored it. For some, the jealousy burned in their eyes like hell’s fire.  

I had something they would never get.

Little did they know how it paled in comparison to what I really wanted.


	6. Part 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena recalls an encounter with Cas and a local homeless man.

I took Psychology 101 and then followed it up with 201 because I found it fascinating.

Anything that was ever wrong with anyone I had ever known… I understood.

No one from the trailer park had ever taken a psychology class. If they had, they would have seen a lot more like I did.

Take Carpet-man for instance. Carpet-man had been around the trailer park even before the trailer park itself. The only peculiar thing was no one was really sure which trailer he lived in. Most thought he was just homeless. 

He looked like he rarely shaved let alone shower. We called him Carpet-man because in the winter he would wear rugs around his shoulders like a shawl to keep warm.

He became the spectacle whenever he passed along the road. Usually he'd be muttering to himself, gesticulating as he went along to really no one in particular. People would watch and stare as he passed, then once he had moved on, they resumed their activities.

I had been on tour with the boys two weeks. I went about my business doing the list of chores that was assigned to me by Benny, the guy who appointed himself “Ruler of all Roadies”.

During those two weeks I spoke barely three sentences to anyone. Instead, I took up thinking my thoughts out loud just to hear another voice in my ears.

It wasn’t long before I felt the stares from the other guys. I felt their eyes on me. I think they thought I’d drop out, that I couldn’t hack it. The longer I stayed the more curious they got. I didn’t feel like I was a piece of meat being salivated over. I wore the baggy clothes for that. I imagined them watching me was more like them watching the discovery channel rather than Cinemax late at night. I was something that was strange and unusual and they were just trying to figure me out.

A lot like Carpet-man, but he was too busy with the voices in his head to notice people watching.

After Psychology 101 and 201, I never looked at Carpet-man the same again. I saw a man who was more than likely mentally ill with Paranoid Schizophrenia. Unable, incapable, or unwilling to take proper prescription medications, no one would hire him. Then with no way to support himself, found himself in the trailer park.

Three weeks in, I was standing at the sound board staring off into space. We were in Seattle at one of the dives that Nirvana would play at in their early days. And I wondered what it had been like for Kurt to stand where I was standing on the cusp of stardom and whether or not it scared him so bad that he heard his own voices.

That's when the sound of Cas clearing his throat cut through my thoughts.

"Yeah?" I said curtly. If he thought he was going to fuck with me, he had another thing coming.

"I... I just wondered..." He stammered a bit like he was embarrassed to even be saying what he was about to say.

I know I grinned at him. It was kind of adorable.

"I was wondering if you could tell me about the soundboard here..."

I don't know if he already knew everything I told him or if he was a really good student but he seemed to understand my mini lecture completely.

After I was finished, he smiled at me. A genuine smile I really wasn't used to seeing on him since he was drunk damn near everyday back then.

I returned his smile and watched him walk away.

One day, mostly because I was bored and mostly because I was curious, I followed Carpet-man after he passed our trailer.

I thought today would be a good day since he didn't look nearly as dirty nor did he seem to be as preoccupied with the voices in his head.

I followed him north through the trailer park and then east a few blocks beyond the park's eastern border.

There was a little diner there called Van's, but he didn't go to the front door. I followed him as he rounded the corner of the building and rapped on the back door.

A portly woman opened up, put on a smile and said, "Well hello Bill! Ready for lunch?"

In a few minutes, one plate came out full of food. When he finished with that he got another, and another until he looked like he was about to burst.

I took it upon myself to approach the portly woman, who happened to be Van herself, to say hello.

"Hi. My name is Lena and I was wondering if I could help Bill home? I live over in the trailer park over there."

Van patted Bill on the back. "Ya hear that Bill? You have someone to walk you home."

Bill barely acknowledged me as we walked back. When we got to his trailer, the last one on the lot I thought had been abandoned for years, he turned to me.

"Thank you," he said clearly, politely.

Years later as I watched Cas's retreating figure on the stage where Kurt Cobain and his band Nirvana got their big break...

I said "Thank you," and hoped someday I'd really be able to tell him.


	7. Part 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena remembers some awkward kisses.

Winchester kissed me. Or I kissed him. It was right after that first time I met him. Correction. _During_ the first time I met him might be a more accurate description.

Either way, I wished it never would have happened.

One night, when I was eight years old, I woke up in the middle of the night. I must have been pretty thirsty because after finding that there wasn’t a cup in the bathroom next to my room, I decided to get help. There was no way my little 8 year old self was going to go down the stairs to get a glass of water.

This was before we moved to the trailer park.

In my favorite pink pajamas I crept into my parent’s room. Since dad’s side was closer, I reached out, put my hand on his arm, shook it slightly and whispered as loud as I could, “Daddy!”

When he started to come around, I whispered loudly again, “Daddy! I need a drink!”

He said gruffly, “Come here.”

I was confused.

He said it again, “Come here…”

So I pushed my face closer to his.

When Dean kissed me, he was drunk. He was so incredibly drunk.

I think they sent me in after him because even though I was drunk too, I was the most sober person there. Seriously.

He was half laying on the floor his head propped against a toilet I hoped had been properly cleaned before this “event,” if one could call it that.

He didn’t move when I nudged him with my foot.

So I sat down beside him with my beer in hand.

It wasn’t too much later that Dean came around and dry heaved into the toilet. I reached up and grabbed the towel on top of the countertop and handed it to him. The spit trailing down beside his mouth was going to gag me if he didn’t get rid of it.

“Who’reyou,” he slurred out.

“Your new sound tech.”

“Good. You’ll get used to this…” he said as he wobbled like a Weeble and swayed his head down to my lap.

I took another drink from my beer and leaned my head back against the wall.

With my face next to my father’s I was in for the surprise of my little life.

He placed his lips against my cheek and began to suck. I felt the skin on my cheek pull away from me and grow increasingly wet.

At 8 years old, this really confused me. Daddy had given me kisses on the cheek before, but nothing like this. Nothing like…

“Daddy,” I whispered as loudly as I could to get him to stop.

He pulled back and his eyes opened a little wider. “Oh! I’m sorry,” he said sleepily, taking one of his big hands and wiping at my cheek. “I thought you were your mother. What do you want?”

I think I just stared.

“Lena?”

“I… I want some water and there’s no cup.”

That’s when we both noticed that mom wasn’t in bed, as she just walked in the room.

After that, I don’t remember. Mom probably helped me get that drink of water. I probably curled up in my bed and I probably went to sleep.

But the next day I remembered. And the day after that. And the day after that.

I don’t think Dad ever remembered.

It was an innocent enough mistake… I just… I just really wished it wouldn’t have happened.

Winchester woke up maybe a half an hour later. I can’t really say. I wasn’t exactly keeping track of time.

I could tell he was sobering up enough to get his wits about him. Because then he sat up, and he looked at me. Then he looked _through_ me… like he was seeing a version of me that even I didn’t know existed. He saw _me_.

Maybe it was the bourbon and beer I had…

But I felt something. I felt like there was no world left. I wasn’t sitting on a dirty bathroom floor. We weren’t two people drunk off our asses. We weren’t even employer and employee.

We were just… us.

His eyes were open and honest and a brilliant green kaleidoscope of swirling colored emotion. He… he was as empty as I’d felt all these years. He was ugly. He was just looking for someone to accept him, the perfect mess he was. Just like me.

Our eyes never left each other’s as we drew closer and closer.

My eyes slid shut just as his soft lips covered mine.

And I felt like I was flying. I felt the first hit of a high I didn’t think I would ever come down from.

The thing, the thing with my dad, it took me a long time to figure that out. Out of all the creepy awkward things to happen in my life, that one was the first.

It was innocent. It was an honest mistake, yet it changed me.

I love my dad and I forgave him, but I couldn’t forget.

And Winchester?

.

I would never be able to forget like he so easily did.

Someone opened up the door.

I wouldn’t remember until later that it was Cas who opened up the door to find me and Winchester lip-locked on the bathroom floor.

“Jesus Christ!” Cas sputtered and backed out of the bathroom doorway. “We have to go, Dean.”

Dean clumsily reached up and caressed my face. With our eyes connected again, I knew he felt the same thing I did.

Until he whispered like he was just remembering, “I… I have a girlfriend…”

That’s when he used me to push himself up off the floor.

My dad never kissed me again after that. Not on the top of the head, not on my cheek.

And Winchester, he wouldn’t have either if he would’ve had his way.


	8. Part 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena discusses being in love.

It turned out that Ty would become the only girlfriend and sister that I would ever have.

Ty and I started "going together" in the 7th grade. "Going together" or "going out" was the terms we used to signify that you liked someone enough to try to kiss them. That is if things went that far, which they rarely ever did.

Ty and I were friends already, so it wasn't that big of a surprise to me when one day Ty turns to me and says, "Wanna go out?"

I shrugged my shoulders and said, "Why not?"

Until that point I really never had any kind of romantic ideations about boys. I blame that on the fact I had a brother. Guys were no mystery to me at all. I found them all gross and appalling and thought they all did the same thing my brother did when his bedroom door was shut and his music was up loud.

Like I said, I'm not a genius. I've just been around so long...

So when Ty, the only un-gross boy I knew, asked me out I was calm on the outside but kind of enamored on the inside.

One night on tour, we were set to all go out after a day of driving. Except me. I didn't go out. I usually returned to an empty bus to clean the disgusting filth the other roadies left behind or, if I felt like being a really big bitch I'd pull out one of my favorite chick flicks, drink my beer and keep to myself.

Except this one night. I stepped off the bus with one of two full bags of trash to find Novak standing there.

I glanced at him and continued on my way to the hotel's dumpster. As I walked, in my mind’s eye I could see his face: slightly amused, smug even. He looked dressed up. Or as dressed up as Cas Novak got without appearing in front of a camera.

He was standing in the same spot when I came back to the bus to grab the other bag.

I walked past him with the other bag when he finally called out, "Are you going out?"

I hollered over my shoulder, "Does it look like it?"

I was wearing my favorite dirty pair of jeans and my favorite Old Navy sweatshirt. Even I would have enough sense to dress up a little more for going out.

When I came back to the bus's door, Novak wasn't there.

He'd taken a seat on the bus.

"What do you want?" I demanded. If there was anything I learned about boys it was that you didn’t give them an inch, because they’d take the whole damn highway to California. 

He kicked back, lifted his legs up across the bench of the mini kitchenette and asked, "What're we watching?"

My eyes glanced at the case on the stand and he knew if he dived fast enough he could snatch it off to see it before I yelled at him.

And that's exactly what happened.

"Enchanted?" He laughed.

"Fuck you. My night. My movie, now get the fuck out." I was practically on top of him trying to claw the case from his canvas fingers.

He let go and I stumbled back. I watched as he relaxed, and said, "I’m not going anywhere. So if you want to watch... That... Then that's what I'm watching too."

His blue eyes sparkled at me, like he knew some hidden secret and it was about me.

I fell in love with Ty. Maybe it wasn't so much as love than a crush, but I thought it was real enough. I think that what I felt for him was what I've always felt for him. But when you're a teenager and you have hormones and you're learning and your brain is desperately trying to catch up with your almost adult body... Anything can get misconstrued.

Except, as I got older, I became the leading example on emotional misconception.

Because Cas stayed and watched Amy Adams prance around our little 17" monitor with me and I never saw it as anything more than a pity party.

Ty always told me, even as we were older that I wouldn’t know love if it hit me on the head and then tongue kissed me. 

But by this time I had my head wrapped up in someone else. He appeared at the bus door, drunk, as Cas and I were deep in conversation about the role Disney Princess films play in young girls’ consciences as they begin dating. 

I was laughing at something Cas said when Dean stormed on the bus. 

There was silent exchange between Winchester and Novak. The kind of exchange between facial expressions that told you that you really didn’t want to be hearing the thoughts going through their heads.

Winchester must have won because Cas stood up and said, “I better be going.” 

I watched him walk out of the bus with everything I had been feeling up to that point: warm, happy, content, interesting. If I had wanted Cas to stay, I didn’t know it. I let him brush past Winchester rather violently. 

When Cas was out of earshot, Dean demanded, “You. Bunk. Now.” 

I scurried to the bunk. He pulled my shirt up over my head, and pushed my bra out of the way. In one hand he grabbed onto my pony tail and wrapped it around his hand and pulled my head in one direction as his lips, his tongue sucked at the flesh on my neck and his other hand palmed over my small breast easily. 

I could feel him straining against his pants rubbing into my thigh. He murmured things against my skin, things I knew weren’t spoken for me but I couldn't understand them anyway. He yanked my jeans off of me and slid his fingers into me. 

To me, he said angrily, “I want to hear you come.” 

Even though he was rough, he sent me spinning. I didn’t have any more control over my body than I did this entire situation. Dean pulled himself out of his jeans and his boxers. As his hand slid up and down over his cock furiously and he pumped his fingers in and out of me, our eyes met. 

And I still thought I knew what love was.


	9. Part 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena tells a story about Winchester and the actress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Violence & voyeurism.

Over and over and over again it happened. Winchester always caught me off guard. Sometimes it was right before a performance. Sometimes it was right after a performance. Sometimes it was in the middle of the night when the buses stopped. 

He couldn’t care less if someone else was on the bus. He just closed the bunk blinds. 

He knew his crew wouldn’t say anything. He was their cash cow. 

When he came to me he was angry and frustrated maybe even hurt. 

I would have held him. I would have run my fingers through his hair and told him that nothing in the rest of the world mattered except for what he could do. What he could change. I would have kissed him tenderly and told him how precious I thought he was, even when he was showing me him at his most disgusting. I would have told him that I would have loved him to the ends of the earth… 

If he would have only let me. 

But I think as time wore on, I became more his property than anything else. 

The actress was able to come to a show a couple months after Winchester started with me. 

Happy for once, he took his open box of picks to sign and never returned them with the rest of the supplies. I was searching his dressing room when I heard them both coming down the hall. 

I didn’t want to face him. 

I didn’t want to face her. 

I didn’t want to face them together. 

I was standing next to a utility closet and slowly slipped myself inside. It was a wooden door with slats, so even though I was concealed perfectly, I could hear everything. 

I thought to myself, well this is fucking great.

They laughed and talked about happy things. They flirted. 

My heart beat in my chest a million miles an hour and I was sure they would hear me. 

He crossed the room to shut and lock the door. 

I heard them kiss and kiss and kiss again. 

I could see in my mind’s eye everything they were doing. Everything they were feeling. 

A tear slid down my cheek. 

I heard them taking off their clothes, and the loud sucking and slurping sounds through the door. 

Then I heard the things I never got to hear clearly, “Oh God… I missed you so much…I love you. I love you so much. It kills me to be away from you.” 

I was already leaning against the wall when the thought crossed my mind. I’d watch him come countless times, but I’d never heard him make love. 

I felt dirty and ashamed, but hey, this girl has needs too. 

So I did it. 

I hid in the closet, my fingers caressing the sensitive spot between my legs while the other hand fingered my nipples. It was like music to my ears, a symphony to my soul. I could hear him making love and I was there with him. Though, not technically. 

His words kept pouring from his mouth, words of devotion, adoration, endless love for her. 

I paused when I heard her say, “Dean, Dean baby, not so rough…” 

“But I thought you liked it… you know… a little rough…” He sounded so unsure and confused. 

“Mmm… no?” 

There was a pause between them. And I know what he was thinking. 

She wasn’t me. 

I could imagine the horror on his face. 

She said, “It’s okay baby. Just be nice. Just play nice.” 

She smoothed things over, but he wasn’t very verbal after that. 

It didn’t matter. I could still hear him, pushing through her, slapping against her, grunting against her. 

I came when they did. 

I was coming down from my high when I heard him. And it broke my heart. 

He was sobbing. 

He no doubt had his face buried against her chest, her arms wrapped around him as best as her little delicate frame could, as he let everything go. 

“I love you,” he cried.

“I love you. You can do this, Dean. Just a few more months. After your tour, after my movie… we’ll spend Christmas together and start our lives. You’ll see.” 

“You… I never feel like me when I’m not with you…” 

“I know, baby. Just… hold on.” 

Then I was sobbing. 

She left to go back to LaLa Land and not more than an hour later he was pounding on my hotel room door. 

“Go away,” I yelled. 

It wasn’t that I was heartbroken. I knew this was the way it was. I knew this was the way things had to be. I knew I was getting a piece of him that no one in the world did. 

But it didn’t mean that I had to want it right now. 

“Lena, open the mother fucking door,” he growled. 

“Why don’t you go pay someone to fucking open it for you?” 

To my surprise, he did. 

“Thank you,” I heard him say sweetly to someone in the hall. I couldn’t see him from where I was sitting against the headboard. 

But when he turned the corner, I knew I shouldn’t have fucked with him. 

He came in and slapped me across the face. 

I held my hand against the stinging spot, tears gathering in my eyes. 

“Fuck you!” I spat. 

He had one knee on the bed frozen to the spot. But his chest heaved and his nostrils flared as he breathed. 

“I’m not her! And I didn’t fucking leave you here!”


	10. Part 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena discusses her beliefs.

I’m not entirely sure that my parents believe in God. 

We were practicing Lutheran Christians for a long time. We went to church every Sunday. We participated in Sunday school. We stayed at church camp and we went to every special event the church held. 

I think that when we were younger that they thought that being involved with the church was something good citizens did to raise good children. Other than one enormous family bible there were no other symbols of faith in our home. No crosses, no pictures of Jesus, no angels… nothing. 

When Chuck and I became teenagers and Chuck rebelled enough for the both of us, our parents cried Uncle and just stopped going. Since the church was down the street, I continued to attend until I too wondered: what was the point?

I mean, I understand the meaning of tradition. I still sing Christmas Carols because it’s tradition. I understood that our family had been traditionally devout Christians for centuries. But when it comes to faith, when it comes to believing in a power much higher and much bigger than you, well… that’s personal. 

The reason I think it’s personal is because you have to have the ability to believe in things you cannot see. You have to have the ability to believe in things, like yourself, first. 

I always thought that if I couldn’t believe in myself, and I am with me every day to hear and see what do, how can I believe in something like God?

God is good. 

So why do millions of people die of random acts of violence every day? 

God is merciful. 

Why are there so many people in pain? 

When I was younger I thought that maybe it was because these people didn’t believe. I was taught to think that bad things happened to people who didn’t believe. So I believed. 

I didn’t want bad things to happen to me. 

But the more I believed the worse things got. Ironically. Unfortunately. 

There was only one time of year that I believed. 

There was only one time of year I felt what I was supposed to feel. 

Christmas has always held this magic for me. 

If my parents didn’t do the whole religion thing, they definitely did the whole Santa thing. They were so good at creating the magic that surrounded Santa Clause that when I finally found out there was no Santa, I was crushed. I had been lied to all along and as a little girl. I believed wholeheartedly in the jolly big elf who cared for every child on earth. 

Then every year after that, I would still do it. Light up the Christmas tree seeing the empty spot underneath and think… in just a few weeks, it’ll be filled with presents (cue floating sparkly twinkles). 

Ty said to me once, “Everyone believes something different, because they can. Not because they were made to believe the same thing.” This was after he’d come out of the closet and he knew that finding a church that shared his beliefs would be few and far between. 

The most interesting thing is that to this day I still believe in the magic. I still believe that it’s possible to feel less alone, it’s possible to feel happier at Christmas time. It’s possible to give when you have nothing left to give. It’s possible to make something out of nothing. 

It’s the baby Jesus thing I have trouble buying into these days. So I took the religion out of Christmas. To me Christmas was more than a story of Immaculate Conception, a baby in a manger, a shining star and three wise men. Christmas was more than the church. It was more than everyone’s church, and I’m not sure everyone has figured that out yet. 

We had a couple of churches in our town, but for the Lutherans, there was the affluent church and there was a poor church. I went to the affluent church once. I greeted people. I received fake smiles. I saw the classes of social status. I wondered how a church could survive like this. 

I greeted people at my church. I always found the smiles friendly, sincere. It didn’t matter who you were, or where you came from. 

I decided, years later, that there were two kinds of people designed for the church. There were those people who had so much faith and belief in themselves that if they wanted to believe in a higher being, then that’s what they were going to do and no one could tell them different. But after seeing the poor people of my church, the poor of finance, the poor of spirit, I knew. I’d always known that they needed the church as much as the church needed them. The church provided them faith when they had none left. 

“We all have wings Lena,” he said to me as we looked up at the stars. 

That’s when he stood behind me, wrapped his arms around me and buried himself in my wings as I cried. 

I… I was somewhere in the middle where I believed in the magic of something I couldn’t begin to understand. 

Love.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena remembers a performance in grade school and the boys on tour finally go too far.

The guys had slowly, very slowly started warming up to me. Once they figured out that I was as thick skinned as I looked, they weren’t so awkward around me. I think after a while they started to see me as “one of the guys.” But I was the one guy that the others liked to pick on. The weakling. 

I stood out from the crowd because I was the girl. I was the girl who wasn’t supposed to be working this close with a bunch of guys. Despite the distractions, I did my job, and kicked ass at it. 

I enjoyed what I did. I wasn’t in the spotlight but I felt like I was an important part of the production. With my talent, I could make other talent shine. It was the one thing I could be proud of. 

In third grade, my music teacher decided she wanted to have a poem recited in that year’s Christmas show. It was only two stanzas of a Christmas poem, but I knew several girls who really wanted the chance to have the spotlight. 

We spent a class going through and letting everyone try to say the poem perfectly. I was the only person in the class who could recite the poem word for word. The music teacher asked me then if I would say the poem for the Christmas show. My little 9 year old brain didn’t know any better to say no, so I said yes.

There was something in the air this one night on tour. I think all the Boys had ornery for breakfast and I had become the new target. Unfortunately for them, I had a big old bitch sandwich and was in no mood to put up with their shit. 

I was helping the guys pack up like I usually did, but I caught Sam fiddling with my controls again. 

“Fuck you Sam and your fucking half-wit head! You fuck with these dials one more time I swear to God I will skewer everything that makes you male!” 

He ran off chuckling like he was 6 years old while the rest of the guys followed him out. 

I did my best trying to put the controls back just guessing, and put the rest of the equipment away by myself. 

A few days before the Christmas show, Cindy, who was the prettiest and most popular girl in my class said to me at recess, “You know you’re going to have to say the poem in front of everyone, don’t you?” 

As a matter of fact, I did know that. Unfortunately, I hadn’t given it much thought. “Yeah,” I sneered. I never did like her. 

“Oh, well, Good. I’m sure everybody’s parents and grandparents and sisters and brothers and aunts and uncles and cousins… Well, I bet they just can’t wait to hear you mess up.” She said sweetly. 

She skipped off before I could retort anything, not that I’d have anything to say. 

But she was right. Everyone would be watching me, so I had to do my best. 

During the long nights on the bus, it was customary for the guys to wake me up any way that they could. It started with yelling. But then I started wearing noise canceling ear phones. Then they got more brave and would shake me awake running off before I was fully awake to catch someone in the act. 

But that night I caught Sam, I was tired. I was worn down and was looking forward to some sleep, hoping at least Sam had gotten his taunts out of his system. As I boarded the bus, none of the guys were around. Inside, all the bunk blinds were drawn and things were silent. 

My back bristled. This was not a good thing. 

I opened my bunk blind and the most God awful stench I had ever smelled attacked me. 

In the middle of my bunk mattress, was a huge wet spot. Judging from the smell, it was a puddle of piss. 

I stood front and center before we were to sing Winter Wonderland. I would recite my poem during an extended opening of the song. Then I would take my place on the stands and everyone would sing the rest of the song. 

I remember standing there waiting for my cue to start. 

Instead of freaking out, I just started counting in my head. 

1… 2… 3… 

Until the music teacher nodded to me and I started speaking. 

Staring at my bunk, I stood there in a silent rage. I could have killed. And I almost did. 

Someone kept a switch blade in the utility drawer on the bus. I went straight to that drawer. Flung it open, and crashed into the first bunk that caught my eye. 

“What the fuck!?” He managed to spit out before I held the knife to his throat. 

“Who did it?” My voice was low and mean and I didn’t even recognize it in my own ears. 

Benny’s eyes were wide with fear. “I… We…” 

“I could cut your carotid before you have time to blink asshole! Who did it?” 

Then there was a lot of commotion at once. Guys were screaming from the bunks not to say anything. Some of them were screaming at me to put the knife down. Sam was trying to get out of his bunk to reach for me. 

But then they all shut up. I still had my eyes on Benny, frozen to the spot.

A large hand covered one shoulder. Another hand covered the other. 

I heard Cas’s voice soft and firm in my ears, “Lena… come on. Let’s drop this. Come with me.” 

After the Christmas show, everyone congratulated me. All my classmates, including Cindy, told me what a good job I did. 

For once, I felt the respect I deserved. 

Cas took the knife from my hand and steered me away out of the bus. 

“Stay here,” he said. He closed the bus door, and though I couldn’t make out what he was saying, he was threatening them. 

He came out and grabbed my hand and walked me to his bus. 

Winchester’s bus. 

We stood before the bus door and Cas said to me, “You can sleep with me.”   
We climbed on the bus and though I had been on it before I felt like Dorothy entering Oz. 

He lay down in his bunk first, and then I lay down beside him not noticing that Winchester watched us the entire time until I was settled. 

His eyes… were mirrors of my own, revealing the anger, the hurt and the slight surprise.

Cas reached above me slid the blind closed and held me as we slept through the night.


	12. Part 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena talks about her relationship with Dean Winchester.

I loved Dean Winchester.

I loved Dean Winchester in a way that completely changed my life.

I think I needed to admit that to myself and wished I would have done so earlier.

In the first weeks of the tour, I was the loneliest I had ever been. Without the distraction of other people to talk to my first meeting of Winchester was always at the forefront of my mind.

I saw the way he smiled for others. I saw the way he loved an audience. He charmed. He was intelligent and witty and had the best mind for the business I had ever seen.

Many of the starlets I'd taken care of in college thought they would put in their time getting an education, getting experience so that one day they would find themselves in a breakout role and the rest of their lives would be smooth sailing.

But not Winchester. He had a plan. His plan mostly consisted of this: never quit. Sure he had his 15 minutes. But instead of riding those minutes out until they fizzled, Dean used a couple and saved the rest for later. He learned and built a foundation. Now his band consistently sold records and had descent selling singles. Plus, with the reputation he'd gained, everyone in the business wanted to work with him.

And I loved that about him.

He didn't seem to pay too much attention to me in those first weeks and I was okay with that. I was trying to find my own footing and if he had smiled at me, talked to me I wouldn't have been able to concentrate.

Instead, I was happy just to be near him, to breathe his air, to let my eyes follow him when he walked across the room.

If the connection we shared on the bathroom floor was as strong as I thought it was, I would get my chance again.

As time wore on, I realized he was afraid of me. There was a reason he stayed far away from me. He had a girlfriend, a rather serious girlfriend I heard. But my deepest darkest thoughts figured that he couldn't get past the one thing everyone else couldn't get past, my unfortunate face.

Finally, one day he took me aside. He took me into his dressing room and shut the door.

I was nervous and jumpy before he even turned around. I never got this close to him and it was short circuiting all my nerves.

He turned around and said, "Look, I was going to have Benny do this, but I wanted to. You're doing a really good job with the equipment. It's about fucking time they got someone who was trained in sound."

"Thanks? I think?" I sputtered. It was then I felt like the biggest idiot on earth.

"But I notice the way you look at me."

My face flamed instantly. Deep down I desperately hoped he remembered that moment...

"I think it's best if you keep your attention off of me. Rumors get started out of the simplest things and I don't need the rumor mill getting back to her... Do you understand that?"

I cast my eyes to the floor and couldn't look at him. I was so ashamed. How could I have ever thought that there was anything between us?

I left the room without uttering a single syllable and found somewhere to hide and cry. I was heartbroken then. I shattered my own heart that I'd built around Winchester on my own in the first place.

But that didn't matter either. His eyes, his eyes haunted me in my dreams. When I was awake he was there looking sexier than ever. Then he would perform and pour emotion into his songs I could feel to my toes. Then he would meet and greet fans, and occasionally a child would appear and he would shower that child with all the love and attention he could muster.

I don't know about anyone else, but I saw the future when he held a child. He would have children someday and he would be the greatest Dad. Then and only then, would I want to have babies too.

So I would watch him from the wings, in the dark, where no one else could see me and I'd watch him perform. I wouldn't hide anything. I'd let every emotion I was feeling show plainly on my face.

The other thing I needed to admit to myself was that Dean Winchester was a poison for me. He was an evil poison that made me love him and then shut me down. His personality was double edged. I only got the Winchester who raged and seethed when his grand lifestyle left him empty and unfulfilled. I got the Winchester who hated his life and public strings he was bound by. And when all that had gone, I got the Winchester who hated his life for taking him away from the one person he felt grounded him and tied all of his facets together to make him complete.

Dust. 

Ashes. 

The crumbles of a man lost in the wind. That's the Winchester I got. And I hated it because I loved him. I loved him even when he was his darkest shadow. When he had nowhere else to go, no one else to turn to, it was me. It was me because he knew I was dark too.

I sat naked curled up in a ball in a hotel room in Dallas. My legs drawn up against my chest, my arms circled around my legs. I was staring at the welts he left around my wrists I knew would bruise. I didn't feel the hurt. Not yet anyway. Winchester and I had done more than our fair share of drinking.

He was hunched over his knees running his fingers through his hair in regret, no doubt.

There was always regret. If not for her then for…

"I love you."

I said this trying to take away his pain, trying to alleviate some of his guilt. If it were even possible that it made everything okay if I loved him.

But it made him angry. He stormed from his side of the bed to mine where he took a fist of my hair and twisted my head so I was looking at him. So he could look at me with all the hatred he could muster.

"Don't you ever. Ever. Say that to me again. You don't love me, you hate me. Hate me."

He dressed and he left the room.

"I could never hate you."

And I still don’t.


	13. Part 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena realizes something significant.

College.

Can I admit for just one second that college was a blur?

Okay, now that that's out of the way, college wasn't so bad. Everything else…

I moved away to live on campus, because I could. The full theater scholarship gave me everything I needed for four years of college.

Ty helped with that application.

"If I write the essay for you, you'll sound..."

"Homosexual?" I grinned at him.

"Funny, bitch. But yes."

"You can't sound gay though, if you did you'd sound like a girl and I'm already a girl..."

"I see where you're going with this. And you needn't worry. I can do lesbian."

It sent me in to peels of laughter then, and again when I actually won the award. He would have sent in his own submission, except he spent a little too much time fixing his hair and not enough time studying.

The only thing about the scholarship was that it was impressed upon me that I had to continue being a lesbian to keep the award. Apparently I fulfilled their diversity quota.

So I did a lot of drinking and I mastered the art being "the friendly drunk”.

One night Cas pulled me into the wings of the stage we were on. "I have an idea. What do you say we skip town after this performance?"

"For good?" I was really confused and a bit breathless. Being so close to Cas sometimes did that to me.

But he chuckled softly and said, "No... We have a day off before the next show. Just trust me. Come with me."

He was always saying that to me. 

I couldn't see his eyes in the low light. But I knew they were bright.

"Fine... Just, don't get me in trouble..."

For Valentine’s Day my junior year, I drank until I couldn't see anymore. Ty didn't think it was a good idea, he said he'd come see me so I wouldn't be lonely. But I begged him off and said I'd be all right.

I ended up crashing a few parties, stayed up all night, and then only meaning to sleep a few hours the next day… slept all damn day.

The computer lab was only open so late, so with coffee and Visine in hand I trucked it over there to finish a paper that was due the next day.

The attendant, the male attendant, made me cringe. I knew ugly, but he had crooked eyes and thick bushy eyebrows. I remember thinking as I sat down at a terminal that I should move because I was directly in his line of sight. 

I figured I’d be so busy I wouldn’t notice. 

I was wrong. 

He stared at me like I was either an oasis mirage or thick steak. 

Unfortunately, I needed to make that my advantage. 

Cas took me to an indoor water park resort, for whatever reason they were popular in this part of the country. He’d never been to one, and I happened to be his lucky companion. 

My mouth gaped when we pulled in the parking lot with our rental. “Oh hell no… I am not… let’s go hunting, or find somewhere to play paintball… anything but this…” 

Cas turned in his seat to face me with that smug, amused grin on his face, “It’s just water Lena… or do you melt in water?” 

“Ha. Ha. You should be a comedian.” I tried to punch his shoulder but ended up cracking most of my knuckles. 

He took my hand after I pulled it away shaking the sting away. 

“You shouldn’t do that,” he said seriously, his thumb caressing a green-yellowish bruise that lingered at my wrist. 

I pulled my hand away. And my eyes. He had an uncanny knack for making reality crash into me. 

“I don’t even have a bathing suit,” I complained. 

“There’s a shop inside. I checked. I need one too.” 

Fortunately for creeper guy, I needed more time in the lab. So when he walked up to me like a scared rabbit and said, “I...I just wanted to remind you… The lab will be closing at 10:00pm.” 

I didn’t even glance up, “Yeah, I got that.” 

“I…just wanted to tell you… you have really pretty hair.” 

Inside my head, I was rolling my eyes and thinking there was no way in hell I could finish in the half hour until ten o’clock. 

I looked up at creeper guy and smiled the most seductive smile I could muster. “I’m gonna need a little more time than that. Are you free to keep the lab open a little longer?” 

He turned… green. Like he was going vomit, but in a way that said “I can’t believe she’s talking to me.” 

I felt something close to pity flutter through me. 

“I can only keep it open an extra half hour because of campus security… But I…” 

I cut him off by smiling sweetly and saying thank you.

Cas checked us into one room with one gigantic bed. I might have preferred two beds, but Cas and I were sleeping in the same bunk more and more often. 

We changed into the suits we bought and headed immediately to the water slides. There were plenty of family and little kids. It almost made me feel out of place. It had been so long since I felt something like family. 

But then Cas took my hand.

A few hours later, creeper guy finally locked down the lab, shut the door with us inside and we made out on one of the desktops. I might have given him a blowjob, if I’m sticking with honesty here. 

And before I knew it, we were dating...

Not me and creeper guy... Me and Cas.

In fact, I never realized we were dating.

Not ever.

Not once.

Until…


	14. Part 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena tells stories about her mother.

My mother was a stout woman. Portly even, but I never saw her as fat.

She always told me that I didn't get my lithe figure from her side of the family. Her side of the family the women were all made to have a ba-zillion babies. They were made to withstand long cold winters and harvest in the fall. But this was America and the women from her country, who I largely looked like, weren’t doing any of those things. On the other hand, my father’s side held all tall women. She told me it was because they were all brought up in the jungle where they swung from trees elongating their figures. 

I didn’t get that joke until I was older. 

But then she would tell me to hang onto my girlish figure as long as I could because once it started to slip, it was hard to get it back. I always thought my figure was more boyish, but I knew what she meant.

There were two things my mother was constantly doing: dieting and baking.

When I was 7, my mother let me help her make the Christmas goodies for the church bake sale.

She made a pan of brownies and let me sprinkle them with powdered sugar. We made peanut butter cookies and she let me put the chocolate drop in the center. Then she let me stir the chocolate and oatmeal for the no bake cookies.

Helping her in the kitchen was the best. As long as I followed her directions exactly, we made the best goodies. She would put on her apron and start the Christmas music and we'd dance and sing while we waited.

The men, who included my brother, even at the age of six, went off hunting so mom and I had the run of the house. We could be as silly as we wanted. Sing as loudly and off key as we wanted as I did inherit her tone-deafness.

I don't remember exactly how many of those contraptions she bought off the television to help her slim down. But there were a lot of them. The thigh master, the yoga ball, the ab-roller, those rubber band things... All short of a Bow-Flex because my father refused to invest that much money into something that would find a home under their bed.

Above everything, I do remember the pills. She was the only person I ever knew who didn't self-medicate with alcohol. She self-medicated with diet pills.

Her weight would drop and instead of being motivated to keep the weight off she became complacent again falling into her old habits. Her weight would go up, higher than before and she would start the cycle over again.

It took a toll on her body and even I could see that. As time wore on she had less and less energy and the skin on her face looked pale and limp.

That Christmas she was trying a new frosted sugar cookie recipe.

"I want to try this recipe Lena-bean," she showed me a picture from this huge cookie book.

Looking back I think I knew what she was thinking. This was a big fancy cookie book, so the recipe must be better than hers. But she had her recipe for years from my grandma and she adjusted all the ingredients so it was just the way she liked it. They were my most favorite cookie of all the kinds she ever made. 

We made the dough out of the new recipe. We rolled it out on the counter, placed cookie cutter shapes and put the cut-outs on waxed paper. She let me put the cookie sheet in the oven and I watched her turn on the timer. We worked on getting more cookies cut from dough when the timer went off and we pulled them from the oven.

"Oh my," she said shaking her head. "These look awful."

Indeed they had been. Once they were cool enough to try, my mother took a bite and spit it back out in the trash can.

"Those taste like cardboard!"

I remember giggling at the face she made. She didn't have enough flour to make a whole new batch of dough so she said to me, "We'll buy some pre-made cookies tomorrow at the store before church and no one will care. That's what Crystal Manon does every year!" She grinned at me happily anyway.

I knew of Crystal and her daughter Mary. I didn't like them so much either.

There was something about the dieting that made her never want to give up, or throw in the towel. I think she thought if she was continually working on getting her weight down then it was okay for her to be overweight. As I got older, I always wondered why she didn't just eat more vegetables and go for walks. That's what Ty's mother did per his instruction and she looked great. But then she always looked great. Ty always gloated that they were decedents of an Indian princess. 

No matter what she looked like, I loved my mother. She would tell me I was beautiful even when I felt ugly on the inside as well as out. She would sit on the couch and let me lay down putting my head in her lap as she smoothed the hair back out of my face.

There, everything was okay. There, the world slipped away and I was 4 years old again without a care in the whole wide world. There, I was safe, loved, protected - even from myself.

Thinking about her always reminds me of home and always makes me wonder if a part of me never left.


	15. Part 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena talks about her New Year's tradition.

I started a tradition when I was young. We’ll say 10. That’s a good round number. It’s my own personal tradition that not another living soul knows about.

It started because I was pouting. Chuck pulled my hair or spilled my popcorn or was torturing me with his pet rat I hated. I screamed and yelled to make him stop and when he didn’t I went stomping away to my room.

Recently, mom had rearranged my room by moving my dresser away from in front of my window. For the first time I could finally see out of my window, and realized I couldn’t see much except the sky. The trailer backed up against a field the city always promised to develop, but who would develop what beside a trailer park? 

Anyway, this night I was in awe. It seemed the land was darker and the stars in the sky shined brighter. It was New Year’s Eve. 

As a little kid there wasn’t much to be excited about on New Year’s Eve except getting to eat all kinds of junk food and staying up as late as you possibly could. At least, that’s what New Year’s Eve was for me. 

The New Year’s Eve after my tour with Dean Winchester found me at home. I was back in Southern California. I was back in the trailer park with my family. I was Lena Spektor all over again. 

Eventually, as my logical thinking and critical thinking skills developed and I developed more of a conscience, I started looking back over the last year of my life. This last year wasn’t the hardest, not by a long shot, but it was the most revealing year I’d ever lived. 

I learned more about myself in the last year of my life than I had in the previous ten. Everything I’d ever done stood out in stark contrasts to one another like the buildings in the Chicago skyline. I could see points in my life where I thought, “Lena! What the hell were you thinking?” And others I could see, I could remember exactly what I was thinking exactly what I was feeling at that particular moment in time. This wasn’t just a reflection on the past year of my life, but it refracted light so that the rest of my life was illuminated in a thousand tiny flecks. A million tiny sparkling diamonds like the ones I saw in the sky that night. 

At 10-ish years old I looked at the stars and I wondered what life would be like. I was on the edge of being a teenager, the edge of just beginning to find out what life was all about. I thought about the boy in my class I had a crush on and wondered what he was doing at that particular moment. I hoped that Chuck would end up just leaving me alone in the coming year. I hoped that I could get good grades and that maybe I could get that dress I’d recently seen at the store. 

I hated that I’d come so far, yet barely moved an inch in my life. I graduated high school at the top of my class, graduated with a college degree with honors, worked with headlining acts and traveled the country. 

I’d even fallen in love. 

But I didn’t know me. I’d left myself behind somewhere along the way and I wanted to find Lena again. I wanted to know the exact point, the exact moment that it happened. Was it something I did? Was it something I said? Was it something that happened to me that was far beyond my control? At what point in my life did I stop enjoying being me? 

At 10-ish years old I couldn’t begin to be thankful for my health. I didn’t know that I should be thankful for my education. I didn’t know that my family should be the one thing I should cherish above all else. I didn’t know that should draw strength from where ever I could find it so that one day… one day I would need it more than I could have ever imagined. 

Sometime in my teens I’d taken to standing outside to do my star gazing. Some years it would rain, or it would be cloudy. Then I would wait. Eventually the skies would clear, and even if it happened to be evening the day of New Year’s, I would see my stars. As long as I saw my stars then I would finally feel like I could proceed with the coming year. Like it wasn’t officially New Year’s until I’d stood under the stars and thought about the past year. 

I was cold. It was usually chilly. The tip of my nose began to grow numb and I was constantly sniffing the drip from my sinuses back. I had wrapped my coat tighter around me because, I just couldn’t feel. I couldn’t think. I just felt numb. 

Everything screamed at me that it was time to open my eyes, but they were so filled with tears I wondered if they would ever clear. 

I looked up at the sky. I was looking for a sign, anything. 

And then it came. 

“We all have wings, Lena,” Cas’s soothing voice found my ears. 

I blinked and streams of my tears cascaded down my face faster than before. 

“I was wondering,” I said my voice shaking, “I was wondering if she had wings.” 

“I know,” he said. Just like he always knew. Like he was born to just know me. 

“I miss her so much,” I confessed and then I crumbled. 

He stepped up behind me and held me, holding me up before I fell to the hard cold ground. I was doubled over so far, but I remember the warmth of his forehead touching the middle of my back. 

“I know,” he said holding me tighter. “I know.”


	16. Part 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena talks about leaving tour.

Dean Winchester and I didn’t talk much, in fact, hardly at all. 

Our meetings were usually initiated with a look from him. I would see the look, a mixture of angry frustration and pain in those green apple eyes. For a while I would get that look and he would grab me and steer me in the direction he wanted to go. 

On this day we went to his dressing room at some venue in Tallahassee. 

It was a small room, no bigger than the kitchen at the trailer. 

There was a small chair in there that he threw me into. It took a second for me to regain my composure, but it was just enough time for him to pull himself out of his pants. 

“We’re going to do something different,” he said maliciously. 

“You mean I’m going to do something different…” I could see where this was going. I didn’t think we’d ever go there. It’d been two months and he really hadn’t progressed from his usual stroke and blow routine. 

“Start sucking.” He commanded. 

Mentally I sighed. He wasn’t even hard yet and here I had to do all the work. Not that I didn’t want to. Part of me was rather excited at the prospect of wrapping my lips around him, but tour was exhausting me. He was exhausting me. 

There was only one time when I had considered quitting in the middle of a show. When I was asked onto crew and I accepted, I never backed out. I’d seen people do it a hundred times. A better show would come along, or they hated the actors or the director was a prick, whatever it was they’d walk. I’d even filled some of those positions. 

I took Dean into my mouth, and went to help tease him into arousal with my hand when he said, “No hands.” 

I remember thinking, fuck. 

But it didn’t take very long for him to thicken up and for me to become aroused. I wanted him. I always wanted him. It was like a demon inside me awoke and took over relishing completely in the way he smelled, sounded and this time, felt against my tongue. Arousal possessed my body. 

So I did what I could do. He was never opposed to me servicing myself, in fact it helped him along quite nicely. I slid to the edge of the seat and immersed my fingers. With him aware that I was rocking back and forth, he grabbed the hair on the back of my head to hold it still while he thrust in and out of my mouth. After that it didn’t take very long for either of us to come. 

And I swallowed every bitter drop. 

I sat behind the sound board during late rehearsals for a show I wasn’t very familiar with. 

Sabrina Barton was a beautiful black woman who had a voice that could go higher than the rafters. But she never flaunted it. Instead, she felt her songs. She got into the head of the character she was singing and then sang from that character’s heart. 

The first time I heard her sing she took my breath away. I didn’t touch the controls once. But as I’d heard from the director a few minutes later, the next time she sang it, I had to. Even the second time it was so easy to forget who you were sitting there and feel for this girl Sabrina portrayed.

The next song she sang from the show, I literally couldn’t breathe. The tears flowed so fast and heavy that it was all I could do to sit there testing the controls until her voice was flawless. Once her voice was flawless to the point of piercing through my soul I sprinted out of that auditorium and ran until I collapsed. 

Dean put himself back in his pants, and went to go dig through his bag. I thanked God the room was loaded with water. Usually I was un-verbally dismissed. It was our understanding that he didn’t want to see me afterward. But I wasn’t taking that today. 

I sucked is cock, I deserved a conversation. 

He glanced over his shoulder at me taking a pull from the water bottle. Then he glared. 

“Yes?” I said once I had washed all that remained of him down my throat. 

“Get out,” he said as if I were thick, as if I’d somehow suddenly forgotten our arrangement. 

“Why are you so angry at me? What did I ever do to you?” 

His gaze narrowed and he turned around to face me. His jaw clenched and I was pretty certain I was going to be shut down faster than I could blink. 

“We’re not having this conversation.” 

I lifted my head a little, straightened my back, “I want to.” 

He stepped closer to me, “I want you to fucking leave.” 

Somewhere inside of me a kitten had roared to life, “Oh, leave the tour? Okay. I can do that.” 

I turned to find the door, but instead felt his crushing grasp on my arm. He spun me around, pulled me to him. Our eyes met and I couldn’t breathe. 

It was time like these that I knew he felt me. That if he could only give an inch, I could give him so much more in return. 

His lips lowered and my eyes slid shut waiting for those soft lips to crush to mine. But I felt his breath fan my cheek and his lips met the sensitive flesh under my ear. His lips were soft and gentle and caressed my skin like a lovers. 

But the grip he had on my arm was a steely reminder… 

Once I had calmed down I returned to the auditorium. The director was pissed, but it wasn’t him that met me at the soundboard. It was Sabrina. 

“Are you okay?” She put a hand to my shoulder in a sympathetic gesture. 

I nodded at her and sniffed. 

“I’m sorry,” she offered feebly. 

“You’re so good,” was all I could say. 

I didn’t think I could hear her sing that song again, the one that reminded me that my pain and grief would completely consume me if I didn’t stay in control. So I considered leaving. But I couldn’t. 

It felt too good to let it all out when it had become too much. 

Dean pulled away and as if that smoothed everything over, opened the door for me to leave. 

I gave him the hardest look I could I could muster. “I’m going to go now. But don’t think I wouldn’t leave this tour faster than you could whip out your dick.”

I expect he saw my bluff coming from a hundred miles away.


	17. Part 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena and snow.

The unwrapping of presents Christmas morning at home was a frenzy of wrapping paper, ribbons and bows, and occasionally coffee if Dad got too excited. Chuck tore through his presents like he was a bulldozer. He would no sooner unwrap one gift, react, and he was opening up another. He just had to know what each present was and then he would be able to relax … Okay. No relaxing for Chuck, what ensued next was him shoving the boxes or parts in my parents face for them to put his toys together. 

On the other hand, I took my sweet time. The surprise and anticipation of it all never got to me. I loved the way the presents looked perfectly content wrapped in their packages adorned with ribbons and Bows in spectrums of colors. Early on I learned how to look for the tape and tear the paper there. So slowly and carefully I unwrapped my presents one by one. 

“The way you unwrap presents Lena-bean, Santa could use that next year!” 

I think maybe sometimes he did. 

It made me sad to have to unwrap them all, because after all the presents were opened… it would be another full year until Christmas.

It was a cold ass December day in upstate New York. Somehow the tour had managed to miss every single snowflake that fell across the lower 48 United States up until that point. We had stopped to go shopping for warmer gear sometime back in October just waiting for the winter weather, but so far we had been spared. 

I finally got to pull out this huge fur-trimmed black parka and the thermal underwear I’d bought. I was a little woman. I knew I didn’t hold heat very well. But then I got out my gloves, my scarves, my fur trimmed hat that made me look more like a lumberjack. It was awesome. 

Even Ash-man came up to me and asked if he could pay me for my hat. 

“Oh, I’ll sell it all right, but it’ll cost more than any one of you could afford!” 

My parents always wanted us to make out a Christmas list. It started when we were little, making our lists out for Santa Clause. Then one random night mom would say, “Okay! Get your lists we have to set them under the Christmas tree!” 

Chuck and I would get our lists, stuff them in envelopes the best we could, write “For Santa” on them and leave them. 

That night as we slept, one of Santa’s elves would come in the window and leave a white dust trail sprinkled with Cookie crumbs along with their footprints and our envelopes would be gone. 

When we pulled into the venue there was already 6 inches of snow on the ground and another 3 inches hanging in the air waiting to fall. I think I knocked a few of the guys over in my excitement to get outside to just be in the snow. 

Ash and I were from Southern California. It rarely ever snowed there. I think I had seen snow 3 times in my entire life by the time I’d gotten to college. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, it certainly explained my love affair with snow. 

I picked up a handful and watched it sparkle in my gloves. Just as I let it fall, I felt a soft thud to my back. 

I turned to see Cas, standing in the snow, smiling. 

I never asked for much for Christmas. My lists read like a routine store list. As long as I had socks, clothes and shoes, the things I needed. I was good. I was happy. But my parents always made a point of getting me the things I secretly wished, but never asked for. 

Somehow, they always found out. 

When I was 12, I really got into music. My radio was on constantly. If it wasn’t playing something, I was sliding through stations to listen to different music. I started watching the music television cable channels to figure out who it was I was listening to, what it was I was listening to and if everyone else was listening to it too. I became borderline obsessed, but always tried to pass it off as nothing if someone asked. 

Accept Ty. Ty knew I couldn’t get enough. 

That Christmas my parents figured out my favorite band. They got me a new CD player, all the albums by that artist, a poster, a t-shirt and I know there was more that I’ve forgotten. I wondered how they ever figured it out, but I just loved it. It was a gift I never saw coming and could never forget. 

 

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t feel that. I will not have a snowball fight with you.” But I was grinning. If Cas really wanted to play, I would play along. 

He crunched through the snow, coming toward me. When he was close enough to touch me, he stopped and said, “You don’t see snow often.” 

I shook my head, “No I don’t.” 

“Well, then you need to come with me.” 

He took my hand and led me a few feet away to a clearing on the other side of the venue parking lot. 

“Stand here,” he said, kind of putting me in place. “Now turn around.” 

Once I turned, I realized he was extremely close. 

And again, I was breathless. 

It should have been one of those times I realized we were dating. 

He placed a soft kiss on my forehead, and said “Now fall back in the snow.” 

I didn’t know where he was going with this, but he held my hands as I slowly lowered to the ground. The snow was falling in thick clumps over my body and my face and I found it extremely funny. 

“Don’t laugh,” he said chuckling himself. “Move your arms and legs.”

That’s when I understood. 

Snow Angel. 

Cas gave me my first snow angel.


	18. Part 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena remembers a particular night in April.

The tour started in June and went to December. We would all make it home just in time for Christmas.

It was both the longest and the shortest six months of my entire life. 

I went home to the trailer and found dad and Chuck doing their thing. Dad still had his job at the car dealership. He always had been and always would be their top salesman. But Chuck needed a hobby since he didn't find it feasible to get a job.

I didn't have to work through college. I was there to learn about the theater, run it whenever there was a show and graduate as soon as possible. So I did.

However, my classes weren't physics and calculus like I was used to, and it left me a bunch of idle time. School Clubs didn't catch my fancy because I wasn't a club kind of girl. The shows didn’t go the whole year round, so I decided I needed some friends. I found them all right, they just happened to be the drinking crowd. 

I never found myself comfortable around a bunch of people. But this, hanging out with them and drinking on weekends… then week nights… and then sometimes during the day, made sense. It made it easier to be around people when I had nothing else to do. 

It turned out that Chuck possessed my father’s people skills. When it came to getting people to part with their money or goods you could find any two better persuaders than Chuck or my dad.

Chuck talked a lot on the phone from what I gathered. He always answered when I called home. He would have people bring over their junk, which included old dirt bikes, and four wheelers. Dad managed to talk the shop at the dealership to give him spare parts they'd been holding onto for a long time for huge discounts or sometimes free just to move it.

Little did the shop manager know how much the parts were going for on eBay.

"It's like a chop shop," I told Chuck one day.

"Well yes. And no. There's no stealing, really. If you call getting shit dirt cheap stealing."

Dad would come in the evening and help Chuck with the tasks he couldn't do from his wheelchair. Chuck sometimes had his more mechanically inclined buddies do some work for him for a cash fee. It was all really kind of ingenious. 

Being so far away from home was hard. I was far enough I could get home in a couple hours, but it was too much if I wanted to go home and come back in one day. I called home pretty often talking to everyone when I could. But I did get to come back during summers and holidays. 

The summer before my sophomore year felt odd. I couldn’t have explained it even if I’d wanted to. There was an apprehension in the air. A tension. It didn’t make any sense until I got a call from Chuck a few weeks into the school year that mom had gone into the emergency room. 

Dad and Chuck had always been this team, like me and mom were a team. So seeing them work together to kind of work around Chuck’s disability was almost comforting. I felt like as long as they had each other, they were going to be okay. 

As much as I love my dad and brother, I didn’t think that I could make it my life to take care of them. 

Chuck called to tell me that mom had gone to the emergency room, but she had been sent home after getting some fluids and having some blood tests. At the time he told me it didn’t seem to be like anything big, she just had to stop the diet pills and start taking care of herself the right way. 

When I finally got to talk to her, she sounded tired and worn. She assured me what Chuck had said was true. I offered to come home. I really had wanted to come home. But she told me to stay at school, get my work done and so I did. 

I think Dad and Chuck had devised a plan the sicker mom became. I spoke to her less often, and when I did she assured me that she was fine. 

That winter break, I was in tears when I had to go back to school. She wasn’t fine. I knew it in my heart. 

But I did, believing that Chuck and Dad could take care of her and get her the help she needed when the time came.

It was early April, the start of baseball season. I wasn’t a big baseball fan myself but a lot of the people I hung out with did. There was a huge party, and per usual I drank way over my limit. I stumbled back to my dorm room in the wee hours of the morning. 

I remember that before I ever took my first drink I thought to myself, “I’m going to regret this.” But I needed to squelch this uneasy feeling I had in the pit of my stomach. 

I’d seen my answering machine blinking with messages when I got back. But I was too drunk and too tired to care. 

By noon the next day, the number of messages had tripled, and my roommate was shaking me awake. 

“Lena, you need to wake up. Something is going on, the RA was here looking for you. The school is looking for you.” 

I woke up, rubbed the sleep from eyes and I knew. 

She’d died sleeping in her favorite chair after watching her favorite show. 

All I remember from the calling hours and the funeral was hearing people talk about Dad and Chuck and how they were going to cope with mom gone. 

I knew then that they’d be fine. They were a team.


	19. Part 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena overhears an interesting conversation.

When I first met Cas, in late May, he was drunk. He was always drunk. It seemed he’d been drunk so long he didn’t seem that drunk anymore. Until I think all of us realized he really wasn’t drinking anymore. Occasionally he’d have a shot of whiskey, but it was nothing compared to what we were all used to seeing from him.

By August it was clear he’d gone sober.

At the end of September, while rain and my tears fell fast and hard and Cas was keeping me standing against a cold brick wall, he kissed me the first time.

All that time I wondered what had made him swear off all drink. Honestly I thought he only drank because he was bored. But I think he quit drinking because he had other things on his mind. There were other things he wanted to focus on. 

In August I’d overheard a conversation. It was a conversation that I listened to carefully, hiding outside the doorway, praying that I wouldn’t get caught.

Over that year of my life that one conversation held so many meanings for me, most of them I could only grasp one at a time.

I only paused because I heard my name.

“You don’t know anything about Lena.”

For a second I thought Dean had said that, until Dean spoke.

“I don’t need to know anything. She’s my sound tech.”

“Is that why you fuck her on the bus when you think no one is around?”

There was a dead pause. My face flushed. I listened as hard as I could but my heart was pounding so loud in my ears. I needed to listen to make sure no one was coming for the door because I needed to bolt as soon as possible.

“Fuck you.”

“At least tell me you love her, or you’ve broken up with Lisa… or just give me something that explains… your behavior.”

There was another silence and someone dropped into a chair.

“I need her.”

It was so soft I thought I had imagined it. It seemed Cas had barely heard as well.

“You need her? What is that supposed to mean?”

There was another pause.

“I just… need her.”

I remember those words plummeting through me like a roller coaster. _He needed me_. I knew it! By then, it was like hearing bells on Christmas to hear him admit out loud to someone else. My heart leapt in my chest and tears sprang to my eyes. For a long time it would be only these words I would focus on.

“She isn’t one of your groupies that you can just use and then discard! Dammit, Dean!”

“I know,” he said quietly.

“And you can’t keep doing this to her because she doesn’t deserve it and you know it! I am severely disappointed in you… for what you’re doing to her.”

“She told me she’s going to leave, Cas. She threatened to leave if I…”

There was silence. There was silence and I understood nothing.

But they did.

“You love her,” Dean said out loud. It took me a long time to figure out what that meant because I didn’t hear Cas reply.

“You love her, but I need her.”

More silence.

“I’m not backing off,” Cas said.

“I won’t stop unless she turns me away.”

I should have cut in here. I should have stormed into that room and told them I wasn’t a toy they could fight over. But Dean needed me, and there wasn’t anything else in the world I would have heard or seen.

There was a scuffle and I could see through the crack at the door that Cas had Dean pinned up against the wall. “You... are weak and pathetic, Dean. If I didn’t need this, I’d leave and take her with me.”

Dean was able to squeak, “Just… just get her to stay…keep her here.”

Cas turned and having a feeling he was coming for the door, I walked away and turned the nearest corner.

I could hear his footsteps and he was striding up behind me fast.

“Lena,” he called out to me.

I could feel flames licking at my face. I wonder if he’d be able to read me and know instantly that I’d been listening.

When I finally stopped, turned and looked at him, he looked just as flushed, the annoyance and anger still prominent in his eyes.

This was the first time he took my breath away.

“Come with me, we’re going to drink a liquor store.”

“The whole thing?”

“Don’t test me.”

“Before a performance?”

“I don’t think I care. Not today. And you don’t either.”

“And we’re not going to get fired,” I asked nervously.

“Oh hell no,” he grinned at me. “Not today.”

We drank a brand new bottle of Jack between us in just a couple of hours. We had a couple more bottles on standby. That was one of the best two hours of my entire life. We watched sitcoms, laughed our asses off, and received dirty looks from everyone else on tour. I fixed the sound board as best as I could, and when it came to performance time, Cas played as best he could.

Which still sounded amazing in my opinion.

After, we continued our binge late into the night until we passed out in our rooms at some hotel.

He never tried to kiss me, he never even tried to touch me and it was after that he cut back on the drinking.

But when we look back, we consider that our first date.


	20. Part 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena talks about her mother.

My relationship with my mother may have had more of an impact on me than I ever could have thought. 

I think as little girls we not only pick up our sense of self perception from the world around us but from the women in our families. 

My theory is that we see how the women around us perceive themselves so we learn to see ourselves in the same way they do. It’s all a part of assimilation, the early learning of customs and traditions in your family as you’re brought up. Almost like learning the way your family speaks, or the particular manners they choose to observe. 

It was obvious to me very early on that mother was never happy with the way she looked. She would show me pictures of when she was in high school and how she had been trim and fit. Then once she had children, she was never able to get it back no matter how hard she tried. She continually failed, was continually disappointed. 

I saw the beautiful girls in the shows I watched, the ads I saw and the girls at school who were the most popular. I didn’t think I was any of those things. I think I learned from my mother, not that she ever told me I wasn’t beautiful, but I learned to be disappointed in myself. 

It used to be that the most sought after diet pills contained Ephedra, an herb extracted from a plant that was a part of Chinese traditional herbal remedies for thousands of years. It helped the body burn fat by increasing heart rate and raising the body’s core temperature, therefore raising the rate the body would burn calories. 

Mom loved these pills. She said they made her feel great. She had more energy to get through her day and through her work out routines. In moderate doses, it seemed like the miracle herb. 

But that was the problem. Ephedra was an herb and not regulated by the FDA. No doctor prescribed these kinds of things and evaluated their use on patients. People like my mother who didn’t think to research Ephedra and Ephedra use put themselves in danger. Adverse side effects and even deaths started to occur linked to Ephedra use and she continued saying that wasn’t the cause of her own ailments. 

Autopsy said that it was. 

Roughly two weeks after my mother died the FDA banned anyone from selling diet pills that contained Ephedra. 

Ironic? Unfortunate?

My mother died in the name of vanity.

She hadn’t taken any pills in the year before she died, but her heart had been over worked and taxed for so long her muscle fibers became spaghetti strings. 

I know that there are women who would do anything for the sake of beauty. I’ve cinched enough corsets, zipped up enough dresses, and touched up enough hair styles to know. I went to school with gorgeous girls who still went under the knife for plastic surgery to become the epitome of beautiful just to be noticed, to have a more successful career, to be rich and famous and glamorous.

They had half my mother’s heart and they lived to be beautiful another day. 

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t angry. 

I am angry. 

I’m pissed off. 

It was never fair that mother had to feel the way she did. I don’t think dad ever minded the way she looked. From all I ever heard, he always called her beautiful. It was an idea, a notion she had in her head. Something, sometime along the way, she thought she had to keep up appearances. She held this standard about herself that started when she was so young that self-worth equated her looking eternally 17. 

What I think is worse is that she really had no reason to. All the people who loved her, loved her just the way she was. 

There was a lesson in this and it took me a long time to figure it out. I had to grieve the loss of my mother. I had to readjust to living in a world where I couldn’t call my mother on the phone or get a hug from her if I needed it. But after that, after all that, I had a lesson to learn. If I was going to be miserable the rest of my life because I thought I was the ugly duckling, then I was wasting my life away. I might as well have been eating diet pills too.

I learned the hard way that people who loved me for me would do so no matter what I looked like. I didn’t need the plastic surgery I was too chicken shit and poor to get. I didn’t need to hide away from the world. I didn’t need a tour surrounded by a bunch of disgusting Neanderthal boys who mistreated me. I didn’t need to change being me to fit some idea and standard I never bought into. 

We were having a date night. It was one of those date nights I never would have admitted was a date back when it was happening.

Cas was staring at me. 

I turned to look at him, “What?” 

He grinned, mostly to himself and said, “Nothin, nevermind.” 

He quit for a minute, and went back to staring at me. 

“Dude, you gotta quit that,” I insisted. When his gaze never wavered I threw popcorn at him. 

He threw popcorn back at me, but then we went back to watching our movie. 

Then about a minute later he whispered to me, “You’re a beautiful girl, Lena.” 

It was a damn shame it took me so long to hear him.


	21. Part 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena explores a terrible night.

I compared it to a car crash before, but the night that Cas kissed me the first time, wasn’t the only impact I received that night. 

Honesty. I need to be completely honest. If I can’t be completely honest with myself, then what’s the point? 

It was late September and the actress managed to join the tour for a few dates before her filming schedule began for the fall. This meant a few things for me. One, it meant that Winchester would treat me like I didn’t exist. He didn’t approach me, didn’t talk to me, and never looked in my direction. Two, it meant that Cas wouldn’t leave my side. 

When the actress came around everyone’s spirits were lifted, like someone cut the tension rope and everyone relaxed. Except me. I couldn’t help but feel the hatred Winchester carried around was transferred to me when she was near. Just because I understood this role I held in Winchester’s life but that didn’t mean I didn’t want more. It didn’t mean I was jealous as hell of the cute little pixie actress who had every man in 3 mile radius wrapped around her little finger. 

Except for Cas. He stuck with me. At the time I thought of it nothing more than a good distraction.

We had an early performance that day late in September. 

“What are we doing tonight?” I said aloud, a bit bitter. 

Cas was the only person around to hear. “We have that thing.” 

“What thing?” I looked at Cas and he seemed irritated. 

“Dean wants us all to go dinner. It’s upscale, so formal attire is required.” 

“We can’t get out of it?” The last thing I wanted to do was watch Dean get cozy with the actress in public.

“No,” he said flatly. “Get dressed and I’ll meet you at the hotel bar. I have a feeling this is going to require pre-drinking.” 

We arrived at this gorgeous red brick building that looked more like a hall then any kind of restaurant. Winchester reserved a large room for all the people on the tour and some friends and family that he called in. That should have been my first clue. 

Cas and I were getting friendly with the second bar of the night when we watched Winchester waltz in with the actress on his arm, her grateful surprise displayed perfectly across her face. Winchester looked around and our eyes met briefly. 

I felt his eyes harden as he looked at me. 

But then we both looked away. 

It was a little while later that we were to take our seats. I was about to sit as far away as possible from the head couple of the room, but before I could sit with Cas next to me, Winchester brushed past me to say to Cas, “You’re sitting up front with me and Sam.” 

Winchester’s back was to me, but I could see Cas’s face as his eyes never left mine. Cas said to me, “Come on, Lena.” 

But Winchester stopped Cas from moving. “Not her.” 

Cas moved to take the seat next to mine. 

Winchester laughed nervously, gave his charming grin to the rest of the room, “You’re my best friend.” 

I don’t know what it was about that statement, but Cas gave me an apologetic look. I knew he didn’t want to be there anymore than I did. That should have been my second clue.

I enjoyed dinner with a nice buzz and by the time it was over, I was ready to collect Cas (I knew I wouldn’t be able to get away without him) and get the hell out of there. 

But it was about to get worse. 

There was a small elevated stage in the corner of the room where it seemed they usually had live music playing. Winchester climbed the stage with the actress in tow, her small hand smothered in his. He began a small speech by thanking people that they’d come, by thanking the actress to be there. 

He was extremely nervous. Third clue.

It was then I understood, as he bent down on one knee before the actress. 

I felt the air suck from lungs like I had been punched in the gut. I think my hand flew up to cover my mouth. I turned away immediately, not wanting to see the glint of the ring from clear across the room. 

I didn’t even excuse myself as I bolted out the door and rounded the corner of the building. 

I didn’t even notice the rain. 

How dare he? How dare he assume I needed, I wanted to be there to witness that? 

I was so angry, seething so hard my hands were shaking, tears streaming down my face mixed with the rain. I was so angry at him, at his stupid freaking perfect actress, and at me for being the stupid pathetic fool who fell in love with a man who could never love her back. 

I paced back and forth until I stopped. My legs were shaking. My stomach was in knots. 

I vomited my fresh eaten dinner and backed up against the brick wall. 

That’s when I felt Cas’s hands on my shoulders, strong and sure. 

There was nothing. I could hear nothing, I could see nothing. There was nothing but the sound of my own self-loathing wrapping me up tight. 

“Lena.” 

I wanted to collapse to the pavement and the pooled rain water underneath my shoes. I wanted to sink into the earth because I couldn’t live with this anger. I couldn’t live with myself and how gullible I had made myself. 

“Lena.” 

I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t let him see how badly this destroyed me. I knew he didn’t see me like Winchester did. But I couldn’t be sure. There was never a moment in time I gave Cas my complete attention. 

I opened my eyes to see the blur of the rain as it fell to the earth, and like gravity, my eyes found his piercing blue eyes. 

That’s when I went numb. That’s when I felt so much more and all I could I do was shove it away. 

“Come back with me, Lena.” 

I knew it was coming, and maybe I wanted it to happen. Maybe I needed that excuse to break those binds Winchester had on me. Maybe I was scared that Cas might succeed. Maybe Cas had started to creep under my skin, latching on to me. 

He leaned forward and my eyes slid shut. I felt his breath, warm and musky mixed with whiskey. I froze as his lips brushed against mine becoming the sweetest kiss I’d ever been given. He pulled away slightly and as if he couldn’t help himself, he pressed his soft lips further into mine. 

I could finally move, like he was breathing life into me and I wrapped my arms around his neck. My lips, my tongue sought him out, pulling him to me to just to have something to drive away the hurt. 

He pulled me to him, his body so warm against my rain soaked skin, pulling me high until I stood on my tiptoes. 

And for a minute, for a minute I believed I could be loved. 

Me. Loved. 

But it changed nothing. 

When the actress left to go back to filming, Winchester came back to me.


	22. Part 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena tells about the day Chuck's life changed forever.

I was PMS’ing. Can I blame something entirely horrible on being premenstrual? 

Well, Could I try? 

It wouldn’t be any use, this I know. It was something I haven’t been able to get over. Something I’ll never be able to get past. I’ve never been able to admit this out loud, and maybe I never will. 

I never bought into sibling rivalry because Chuck and I are so different. 

He’s a guy… and I’m not. 

He’s barbaric… and I’m not. 

He used to forget to change his underwear… I always remember. 

But Chuck had buddies. Guys he hung out with. Guys who would buy him beer. Guys who told him he was the coolest person on the face of the earth and all he had to do was belch. 

And I had… Ty. Ty who made a prettier girl than I did. 

We did a Shakespeare play in high school. I liked Shakespeare. I really did. There was something about the language that I loved. The words were from another world and most I’d never heard before. But then the lines seemed to flow backwards and still I completely understood. 

For this show, I was in charge of the props though there weren’t many and I was in charge of staging them during scene changes. It really wasn’t that difficult of a job, but I was glad to have something to do and be able to hang out with Ty and my other theater friends. 

There was one thing Chuck had that he coveted above all other things, his four-wheeler. He bought it with his graduation money. He barely kept his part time job at the local McDonald’s and if he wasn’t working or sleeping or drinking, he was riding that four-wheeler. 

That day, all I could remember thinking was, “What a waste of space.” Mom and Dad really weren’t putting any pressure on him saying that the boy had to have a chance to have some fun before settling down. It still makes no sense to me. I was so angry at him and I really can’t even say it was because of something specific. The only thing I could figure was that my hormones had taken control of my body and I hated everything and everyone. He just seemed like the perfect target.

We were performing for the High School during school hours. That Shakespeare play performance was unforgettable. But not because of the performances, or because something funny and humiliating happened, it was memorable because one of my props caught fire back stage while a scene was happening on stage. 

Oh yes.

Gordon Walker was two years older than me and a senior. To say Gordon had been in a lot of trouble over the years at school was an understatement. It was no secret he was the poster child for A.D.D. kids. It just so happened, he was standing next to one of my props. It was a dried bush, the stalks of wheat and corn standing tall while tied at the middle. For a reason I still have yet to fathom, Gordon had a lighter backstage, had it out and was playing with it. 

It doesn’t take a genius to imagine what happened next. 

The bush went up in flames and Gordon bolted. 

I remember watching it go up in flames, but was powerless to move. I was stunned. Someone ran after Gordon, but he was back all too quickly with a fire extinguisher and was putting it out before it caught the 50 year old curtains that were two feet away on fire. 

Once it was out he turned to me. “Take this please!” He shoved the lighter my way. “You have to! If I get busted with this I won’t graduate.” 

I don’t know what possessed me. I went out to the shed where Chuck kept his four-wheeler. I took a random wrench and started messing with it. I started loosening bolts, ripping lines, anything I could do that wasn’t immediately visible. I didn’t know the first thing about what I was doing, my hope was that it just wouldn’t start at all and he would have to spend his free time fixing it up instead of riding it. 

I just wanted to be a thorn in his side, just like he’d been to me. 

I took the lighter from Gordon and crammed it in my pocket before the rush of adults came. I don’t know what possessed me. 

Maybe it was that I knew Gordon really wasn’t a bad guy. He just happened to find himself not making very good choices again and again. I don’t know that they wouldn’t have let him graduate if they caught him. I’d never been in trouble before, and didn’t think I’d get in nearly as much trouble as he would. For once, I thought it might be nice for him to come out the hero. 

So in front of the principals and theater teacher, I explained to them that I’d stuck the lighter in my pocket that morning after lighting a candle for my mother, and in a moment of poor judgment, flicked the lighter on just a little too close to the bush. 

And Gordon saved the day. 

That afternoon when Chuck took his four-wheeler out, it started. He even got to drive it. Whether or not the damage I did to the four-wheeler caused the accident or the four-wheeler malfunctioned because of what I did, or he had just simply drove right into a line of trees, no one ever figured out. 

No one had been there to save the day for Chuck, and his life was never the same.


	23. Part 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena talks about a particular encounter with Winchester.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: sexual violence

There was just one time. 

There was just one moment where I thought to myself, “If Winchester does what I think he’s going to do, I’m going to rip his balls off, shove them down his throat, and be done with him the rest of my life.” 

Just once. 

I noticed something as time went on though. Dean never approached me if Cas was around. I don’t think Cas understood this. At the time I gathered that Cas didn’t like what was going on between Dean and I. Though Cas and I spent more and more time together, there were moments when we just had other things to do. 

That’s usually when Winchester would strike. 

It seemed to me that Dean appeared rather docile on this particular day. It had been a few days since he snatched me and I thought… I just got the feeling that he missed me. 

His movements, his intense gaze all held this sense of urgency. His fingers were a little more gentle, the hatred and anger all but gone from his face. 

We exchanged no words as we took positions in the bus. I sat down on a bunk and he lifted off my shirt, then my bra. He lifted off his shirt as I unbuttoned his jeans, pulled down his boxers and took him into my mouth. 

The truth was… I missed him too. 

He let me take my time. He let me show some emotion by licking him slowly, teasing him, giving him soft playful kisses. He let me slowly take him all the way in and suck steadily all the way out. I wanted to build him up slowly, and this time, he let me. 

See, I dreamed about this. Well, not only this, but the entire scenario. I dreamed that he would let me worship his body, let me tell him that I loved him, let me show him. I dreamed that when he’d look at me after, his eyes were filled with love and he returned the sentiment, only to flip me over and worship me in the same way. 

Deep in my heart of hearts I knew we could be fantastic together. We would be unimaginably fucked up apart, but together be something more. We would be perfect with each other. I wanted Dean to see that. I wanted Dean to realize that he didn’t have to change who he was to be with me, as long as he accepted me for who I was. 

I learned later, that was asking too much. 

His breathing became shallower and more erratic in pace and I knew I was getting him there. My tender touch was doing the magic trick. 

He pushed me back on the bunk and he leaned over me. His eyes connected with mine, and just like always, I saw him bare, naked, and raw. His lips lowered onto my neck where his fever grew stronger and his actions more frantic. 

His lips devoured my breasts which were the same perfect size as the actress’s. He grabbed my arms and had me circle his head like I was holding him to me, but only because my arms were long and thin like the actress’s. His lips grazed the soft plane of my creamy belly, because it was… just like the actress’s. 

His fingers unfastened my jeans and pulled down my panties and pants in one fell swoop. 

That’s when he saw it. 

That’s when all hell broke loose. 

He ripped the fabric down the rest of my legs and looked at the splash of color between my belly button and the ridge of my hip. 

“What the fuck is that?!” 

I looked down as if I’d never seen it before. But I had. I was there when I got it. 

“Oh! A tattoo,” I said, obviously. 

“No shit. When did you get this? You got this with him, didn’t you?” He was shaking he was so mad and I believed for a second that his eyes actually turned and glowed red. 

“And by him, you mean your best friend and guitar player… right?” 

I wasn’t expecting the slap across the face, but even if I’d seen it coming, I’m sure it would have been just as painful. 

Tears stung my eyes. 

“Fucking bitch! You ruined…” He started to say, but he stopped himself. 

He grabbed my wrist and pulled on it to turn me over. I was scared. Probably more scared than I’d been in my life and I’d been in some sticky situations. So I was hesitant. 

Wrong move. 

“Turn the fuck over,” he growled through his gritted teeth. “Now!” 

I turned over, but he pinned my wrists behind me pinching them tight with one hand. 

His other hand grabbed around my hip and lifted me up until I was on my knees. 

I was crying. Crying so hard I couldn’t catch my breath. I couldn’t tell him to just stop so he could calm down. I couldn’t do anything. I was trapped. 

He wasn’t moving, maybe just watching me squirm, and maybe deciding what to do but in that time I’d gained enough composure, “Fuck you! I hope you never let me up. I’ll be on the first plane home you sick fucking bastard!” 

That’s when he leaned way over me, aligning so perfectly that his cock, still thick and hard rest in the crack between my cheeks. His lips came down right next to my ear and he said, “You’d leave your sweet Cas just like that?” 

I froze. I didn’t know why I froze, not at the time. All I could feel was the beating of my heart in my chest and the pulse of a cock resting against my backside. I felt him lift his face away from mine.

I gritted my teeth anyway, “I swear to fucking God, if you do what I think you’re…” 

“Calm down,” he said sarcastically with an extra bite. “I kinda like this right here though,” he said with his voice thick with lust and his hand covering his cock where my flesh didn’t touch.

He started thrusting against my backside, slow at first as he watched his skin slip against mine. “Oh…” a deep satisfactory moan escaped his throat. “Oh God…” 

He went faster against me, and he let go of my right wrist. “Do it,” he commanded. 

After I was assured he wasn’t going to enter me, I should have figured – he never would, and I started stroking at myself, I became aroused very quickly. 

I no sooner started moaning and moving against him and he was ready to cum. 

“Oh yeah,” he grunted above me over and over. 

And when he went, I went. 

Just like that. 

He sat back in the bunk and I laid flat on the bed, since cum covered my back. I waited for him to move, to leave or just say something. Hell, I might have been hoping for him to clean me up, but that was wishful thinking.

I heard his breathing slow and he finally said, “Every time now… Every time we do it like that. Because you had to go get that stupid fucking tattoo.” 

I was close enough with my leg at just the right angle to kick him in the face and that would surely get me fired. 

But each time I thought about it, a pair of sparkling blue eyes crossed my mind.


	24. Part 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena and Cas spend some time together.

One year for Christmas, my parents gave me a car. 

Don’t get excited. It wasn’t a great car. 

There was more rust on it than actual paint. The thin fabric coving the foam ceiling dipped down unless we used thumb tacks to keep it up. The dash board lights never worked and the radio played only AM stations and only sounded through the front right speaker. 

No wait. There’s more. 

The front right tire squealed when I made left hand turns. Sometimes it wouldn’t start while in park, so I had to start it in neutral. The door-ajar alarm sometimes kept sounding even when I had the key out of the ignition. It hated to climb hills, anytime anywhere. 

But it was great on the highway. 

Early one morning in early October Cas rapped on my hotel room door at 8 am. 

Mumbling and stumbling to the door, I finally opened it up to find him up and dressed and ready for the day. Hell, I think he performed in that outfit that night too. “What the fuck?” 

“I have errands to do today; I want you to come with me.” 

“Do you realize I got less than 6 hours of sleep?” 

“Yes.” He had that damn smug-slightly-amused look still planted firmly on his face. 

“Do you realize I’m the biggest bitch in the world when I don’t get my sleep?” 

“I’ll take my chances.” 

His blue eyes sparkled. I would learn later that his eyes only sparkle when he’s up to something. That day I didn’t notice. 

Our first stop was a coffee shop. He figured that if I had both caffeine and carbohydrates in my system, I’d be a happier girl. 

He was absolutely…. One hundred and ten percent… 

 

Correct.

I was in a better mood after that. 

Our second stop was a small tattoo shop. I hadn’t noticed, or cared to know that Nashville had been old stomping grounds for the boys, Mr. Novak included. So Cas knew the shop and the shop owner very well. 

“Tattoos? This early?” 

“Touch ups. He might have extra time, if you…” 

“Oh hell no,” I cut him off. 

“Touch ups then.” 

I followed all the rules my parents laid down for my car. I was still young, still in high school. I was supposed to have rules and guidelines. 

Me having this car wasn’t so much a reward, or a rite of passage for the next phase in my life. No, me with a car was more out of necessity than anything else. With Chuck not being able to drive, mom and dad working to pay off his medical and rehabilitation bills, we needed the extra car. 

I thanked God for that car my junior year when I finally just needed a release. The theater teacher wanted the entire crew to attend these long rehearsals where we pretty much didn’t have anything to do. I had Physics, Calculus, Spanish 3, and advanced English work to get finished. Chuck was coming into the home stretch of his rehabilitation so he had more and more appointments. And it all was driving me crazy. 

So that’s what I did. 

I took off. I drove. 

Cas looked… happy… as the needles jabbed at his skin leaving ink pools his friend would dab away every few seconds. 

“Enjoying the view?” He smirked. 

“Does it hurt?” It was making me anxious as he lay there still with his right arm elevated. Calm as a cucumber. Even as an eel. Apparently I was the only freaking out he was being pierced with needles over and over.

“You know you want one.” 

“That’s not what I asked.” 

“It stings, but it’s tolerable.” I didn’t say anything just continued to watch. “Just go look at some pictures in the book on the counter.” 

“Well, I wouldn’t want something that 300 other people have.” 

“Just go look.” 

I stepped away and looked through the book reluctantly. I had no tattoos and I just had the two small ear piercings I’d had since I was seven. I had to admit I was curious about the whole body art infatuation, but I wasn’t too hip on physical pain. 

I had enough emotional pain to last a few life times, thank you very much. 

That’s when I spotted it. It leaped off the page and smacked me in the face. It was the tattoo I would want… just… modified a little. 

After school one late spring day, I checked on Chuck and headed out of the town on the first highway I hit and I drove. 

I drove and I drove and I drove without knowing where I was going or what I would do when I’d have to turn around and go back. 

I rolled down the window and the warm spring air rushed into my car. I turned on the AM station, turned it up as loud as it would go to blast an oldies station from my one good speaker. 

“Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older, then we wouldn’t have to be so young…” 

The fucking Beach Boys. 

I squawked at the top of my lungs not knowing the notes or the words, and dare I say, I felt free. 

I couldn’t believe Cas talked me into it. I had my lip between my teeth, as his buddy set up a new set of needles. “It’ll look great,” he assured me. 

I knew it would look great. He was the one who added the finishing touches. I wanted a full round heart with a pair of wings. Not cartoon-ish looking wings, but light feathery angel looking wings that could take flight from my skin. But I asked Cas, to finish because I just knew he would know what I wanted… a ribbon of staffed lines and music notes wrapped loosely around the heart. 

Looking at the drawing, it was perfect. 

It just needed to be transferred to my skin. 

I picked a spot that I thought would look nice, that might not hurt so much, the dip on my lower abdomen between my belly button and the ridge of my hip. 

“That’s hot,” Cas said, sitting next to me. 

I glowered at him. 

The needles started and as if he knew, his hand was out stretched ready to take mine. 

At first it was uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable, and I was about to call Cas every name in the book besides Mary Magdalene. 

But then our eyes met. 

And he reassured me. 

And before I knew it, I laid back. I relaxed. Oh God yes it hurt. It hurt like a mother fucking bitch, only ten times worse. 

But the pain drove everything away, everything except the feel of Cas’s warm hand wrapped around mine.


	25. Part 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena begins to take Cas more seriously.

Cas was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, though not nearly that extreme.

As the tour stretched further into the fall and things with Dean began to get more heated, a side of Cas emerged that I didn't know could be there.

Until then Cas had been cool, calm and laid back. He took each day as it was given to him. If it was good, he would enjoy it. If it was hell, he’d ground himself and wait until the storm was over… or drink. He liked to drink. Normally, he looked at things the way they were and decided if there was something he could do about them. If there wasn’t, he let it go, and if there was… he’d pretty much let that go too. 

Over time I think things began to get under his skin. Things he did, things he said screamed that he wasn't happy with the way things were. At the time I didn't pay much attention. I know I say that a lot, but it happens to be the truth. Looking back, I sometimes really regret it. It just… it makes my heart ache thinking he tried his damnedest to do something and none of it mattered.

About 10 days before Winchester’s birthday in early December, Cas arranged for the actress to join us on tour for a few days. Cas called it a birthday present. I called it annoying. As far as I knew Winchester hadn’t seen the actress in almost two months. I must have been right. Over the few days she was there, the rest of us barely saw Winchester and the actress. I think it was obvious the reason.

I stared into space while standing at the sound board waiting for Winchester to decide to join us for sound check. Cas appeared at my side.

I wasn’t in a particularly good mood since the actress was there, and I think Cas realized that. It wasn’t part of the plan that I was more sour than before. 

"You know he hates you, right?"

I said nothing. What could I say to that?

It was true that my own frustration with Winchester was mounting and not because I thought he hated me, but because I thought the exact opposite.

I just needed more proof. I needed Winchester to admit it.

"Lena."

I wanted to scream at Cas to just shut up, to go away and leave me alone. I hated that he was my protector. I hated that he was the only person I could call my friend on that God-forsaken tour. I hated that I had feelings for him however much I tried to ignore them.

"There's no way he hates me. He wouldn't... you know, if he did."

"But he could, and he does."

And I knew... I knew Cas had feelings for me.

"Jealous much?" I regretted the words right after they slipped bitterly from my tongue. I knew how it felt. I knew the jealously. There is nothing anyone else can do about your jealously besides you. No one owes you anything, no matter what person you are jealous of and not the person you really want.

But I also regretted it because I hurt Cas and he had been so good to me.

The guys left me alone after I pulled the knife on one of them, but I think it was because Cas laid into them. I found out later that he made them all take turns sleeping in the bed for a night before it finally made it to a dumpster. I didn't know they had done that because for the 6 days after that, I slept with Cas in his bunk. When I finally got a new mattress, I only occasionally slept in his bunk.

Only when I needed to sleep really well.   
Only when I needed to feel comforted.   
Only when I needed to feel loved.

I don't think I liked jealous jaded Cas because he reminded me of me. And still, there was nothing I could do. There was nothing I would have done because I was so infatuated with Dean. Because I believed a part of me knew that Dean would love me too if only… and then, maybe Cas felt the same way about me.

If only.

That night, with the actress still wrapped around Winchester and Cas avoiding me with his brooding glare, I was approached by Mr. Fitzgerald.

Mr. Fitzgerald was Mr. Fitzgerald because he had my complete respect. He was mature and a complete professional particularly where I was concerned. So it surprised me that night when he had something to say.

"How are you doing, Lena?" He said sincerely, his eyes trying to read me.

That's when I knew he was aware of everything.

"I do all right," I said uncomfortably. "Is there something I can help you with?"

Before he really started to creep me out, his face softened and he looked sympathetic.

"I... I just have something to say and I'll leave you be."

I waited, holding my breath. This had to be good.

"I believe that there are many sides to people. Different people bring out different sides. I think that people keep themselves hidden away to keep themselves protected from the people that they are with. For some people it takes an incredible amount of trust to be able to show those sides. But even then, I don't think it means that a person can't love just the same.

"Does that make sense?"

After a few seconds of thinking over what he was saying, I nodded. "Yeah."

He gave me an awkward hug and then walked away, I’m assuming because he didn't have much more to say.

As I thought over what he said that night, it seemed so obvious he was talking about Dean.

Later Mr. Fitzgerald told me he'd been talking about Cas.

Then I had to wonder, what part of Cas was I missing?


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena talks about the first Christmas after the tour.

Christmas was coming. “You can’t stop Christmas from coming!” My mother would echo the Grinch all Christmas season long. 

She was right. There were 11 months of the year when Christmas was not in season, but people would wait until the last month, the last week, the last day to prepare for Christmas. 

I would know. I was one of those people. 

For weeks Cas would ask me, “What are you doing for Christmas?” 

For weeks I answered, “I’m going home.” 

Beyond that, I had no idea. 

Christmas was coming and I was stuck out on the road and the only thing I thought about for Christmas was what gifts I would give the two most important men in my life: 

My brother and my father. 

The only family I had left. 

I had to rack my brain and figure out what I was going to do for them this Christmas. I usually waited until the very last minute, emptying my bank account in the process. Then in exasperation would just ask them what they wanted and buy it for them. Last year I got them the latest gadgets because they were gadget guys. Big gadget guys. Chuck asked for a GPS unit, so that’s what I gave him. I just didn’t know that he wanted it to dismantle it to see how it worked. 

This year I couldn’t see giving him another gift he would tear apart. 

Their situation now was a bit different than in years past. Every time I called, Chuck rattled on about their new toys. With their new found financial leeway, they could fulfill some of their wish lists which unfortunately for me left me in a lurch for gift ideas.

But I did have one.

There is something about memories that make them dysfunctional. When God designed the human mind I think he made a few performance flaws. First, he didn’t make men and women think in the same ways. Second, he forgot to give teenagers emotional reasoning skills. Third, he didn’t make good memories stand out much brighter than bad memories.

I remember vividly what happened the day my first boyfriend broke up with me. I still remember everything that happened after I found out Chuck wrecked the four-wheeler. I remember everything I felt when I finally made it home from college the day after my mother passed away.

But the good times... The good memories, they always fade. Even baking Cookies with mother seems like a motion picture I might have seen and those were some of my favorite. I don't much remember losing my first tooth, the first little boy I kissed on the cheek, or the week I spent at my uncle’s salvage yard in South Dakota.

Those memories seem so far away, in another lifetime. They are records of times and places that now, seem like they may or may not have existed at all.

At times it seems my mother was just a whisper of a ghost in my life for all those years. I can't be forgetting my mother. I could never forget her. Yet, with each day that passes I feel further and further away from her. And the more happy memories I want to remember of her... the less I can.

We pulled up to our little white manufactured home in the trailer park. I couldn’t even walk around the back of the car to get my bags I was so captivated with what I didn’t see. Not that it wasn’t been missing before; it’s just that this year, I was missing it so much more. 

So I knew what I would do for Chuck and Dad for Christmas.

I returned home to southern California the 23rd of December and the first thing I did was go grocery shopping. They were men and sure enough, there was no such thing as food in the house. Without me around, they ate mostly fast food and at Van's Diner at least 3 nights a week.

I decided I would take over. I would do my best to make them home cooked meals. I would do all the baking that my mother used to do. Then, because I know them, I would do more than just decorate with a table top tree, I would get out the decorations and splatter the place with Christmas cheer.

By the time the 26th came and went, I made 6 different kinds of Cookies, 24 dozen of them all to be exact. I made 2 different pies, made a Christmas ham and it looked like Christmas threw up all over the place. I even pulled out the ladder and ran a string of lights around the front of the house. Best of all, I didn’t care if they stayed there all year long, I wasn’t taking them down.

I'm sure at first Chuck and Dad figured I'd lost it. I got strange looks. I got shooed away when I tried to clean around Chuck. But I kept my head held high, I played my Christmas music and chugged along. I went to bed late and was up before the sun. I cooked and I baked and I baked and I cooked. 

Eventually Chuck even helped.

We enjoyed a peaceful Christmas Eve by kicking each other's asses on Chuck’s favorite game system and they woke up late after I made an enormous pancake breakfast on Christmas morning.

Later, a day or two later, because they needed extra time, they gave me my gift.

And I cried like a damn fool. 

I dare say it was the happiest Christmas we'd had since mom died and I’m pretty sure we all knew why.

Because even if was in spirit, it felt like she was there.


	27. Part 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena examines her life a little more closely.

I’ve taken a lot of time to think about things. 

No, really. I have. 

I always wondered why I hadn’t ever enjoyed my life, why I never enjoyed being me. But then I realized I never had the opportunity to find out who I was. 

How could I enjoy being me, when I didn’t know me? 

I was fourteen when I tampered with Chuck’s four-wheeler and he wrecked it leaving him permanently disabled. I spent the next four years taking care of Chuck, making sure he had everything he could ever want even if that was space. If I didn’t, I’d suffocate from the guilt. I spent every other waking moment buried in English, Math, Science, Social Studies, and Theater to set myself up for college. 

Once I got to college I spent those four years almost oblivious of everything around me, including me by drowning in alcohol whenever I could. If possible, the drinking was worse after my mother died. I graduated, thankfully, with a little better than a B average and enough good references to keep me working. 

I moved back in with Chuck and Dad and life at home was different. They didn’t need me there. In the time since mom died, they learned to live on their own. They had a system. They didn’t even need me to fuss and mother over them like I planned to.

So when I wasn’t working, I was spending my extra time in Ty’s hair salon. Don’t think that sounds so cliché. Even though it really is… but he’s really, really good and he has clients come in for miles. He says the trick is to be good… AND available. There wasn’t a time he wouldn’t take a client and he ruled over his schedule book like a Roman Emperor. It led to late nights, and something for me to do when there was nothing else. 

One night as he colored the roots of one of his guy-pals and they chattered to me about what type of guy I needed to meet and what style of shoes I should wear to make my legs shapely instead of twiggy, I realized something. I was everyone’s project. Everyone I knew tried to make me into someone they needed me to be. They would dress me up, fix me up, tell me how to act, what to wear, what to say on dates, at work, and what to watch on evening television.

The sad part was that after I realized that, I did nothing. I didn’t know any different. 

On another night, Ty was super busy. I sat by the window and watching as rain rolled down the window streaking the light that shined from the street lamps. I must have looked like a pathetic mess, but at least I wasn’t drinking. With no one to drink with, I just didn’t. 

Ty finally found me and grabbed my hands. He swung them back and forth like he used to do when we were kids. 

“Lena,” he singed to me with his sympathetic eyes, “Go. Get outta here, hun.”

“You mean like get the hell out of town?” 

I don’t know why those words slipped from my lips at that moment. Maybe in the back of my mind I was already planning on getting as far away from home as I could possibly go… it just so happened, Ty’s words fit. 

“No,” he said shaking his head as I confused him a bit, “I’m just going to be here half the night. I have a self-bleaching emergency coming in about ten minutes.” 

“Oh.” 

“There’s a club a few doors down. A girl band I do hair for is playing there tonight. You should check them out.” 

I had half a mind to just go home, curl up in my bed and do the same thing over again the next day. 

But I walked in the club. And they were having sound issues. And I knew how to help. 

That night changed my life in a few ways. 

I went in there a girl off the street. I offered my help. I looked at their equipment. I fixed it as best I could. By the end of the night, they asked me to go on a small tour with them. It didn’t pay much, but it got me out of town. 

It got me away with a super group of girls who were a band of misfits much like myself and I got to learn a bit about me. I learned that I didn’t like being home. I didn’t like feeling like I wasn’t needed. I didn’t like feeling like if it weren’t for me Chuck and Dad’s life would be different. I didn’t want to live my life feeling like each day was scripted out for me. And I learned it was so much easier letting people tell me what to do. 

I didn’t even move out from the little house in the trailer park. My permanent address stayed with Chuck and Dad. When one tour ended, I found another and another and another. 

Until Ash found me one night at a bar and said he knew of a job opening, and the rest is history. Well, mostly history. 

I still don’t know if I know exactly who I am. I know that I’m learning. I know I want to learn. 

There’s a man, see. There’s a man who knows who I want to be, who sees the same vision I do. He doesn’t mind that I don’t have it all figured out because he’s willing to help. He encourages me to do the things I want to do when I’m too afraid. He knows when to just sit back and wait. He knows when to drop everything and just love me.

Then he smiles and teases me. 

I’ve decided to walk this road and take it one step at a time. I’m walking this road and I’m glad that he’s walking it too. 

I wouldn’t want it any other way.


	28. Part 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena discovers something important.

I always wondered if Dean and Cas talked about me a lot after over hearing that one conversation. If only I were a fly so I could over hear them more often because I’m sure they have plenty to talk about. A few weeks after I got the tattoo, I got my answer.

I realized that I never saw them talking anymore. There were only two instances where they did, on stage and if it was about the music. That didn’t mean a whole lot though, what I saw and what was actually going on could have been two very different things. I wasn’t around either of them all the time. I was with Cas a good bit, and Dean sometimes but definitely not all the time. 

Dean and I had a "session" in his hotel room before a performance one day. It was probably late October. It became the new routine that he would strip me and tell me to turn over, or just turn me over himself. To say that he enjoyed this even more than what we were doing before might be an understatement. 

The thing was that more and more often I was glad when it was over just so I could see his humanity while he composed himself. Day in and day out he kept himself trapped in this tight little bubble, angry and frustrated. Afterward, I saw the raging emotions he held at bay from everyone. He allowed himself to feel. Though he never talked about them, I knew they were there. I always felt them too.

But this time he spoke, "Do you and Cas..."

I waited for him to say the rest of his question. I couldn't read his eyes because his back was turned to me.

"Do we what?"

"Fuck."

"No," I said quickly, incredulously. Why would he ask such a question?

He turned and gave me a sharp look. "You don't?"

"No," I shook my head. "If we're talking bases here we've barely been to first."

He looked genuinely surprised.

"I'm not a slut. Besides, what do you care?"

"But you sleep together on the bus..." I don't know if I was imagining the tortured look on his face.

"I fail to see the importance here, but since you're so talkative..." I stood up. I was still naked and this was taking every ounce of bravery I could muster. I stood before him, his face just above my waist level and put my hands gently on his shoulders. "Why does the tattoo bother you so much?"

He looked at it for a long moment.

Two days later I climbed into Cas's bunk to sleep. We all had colds and no one was sleeping very well. I just thought we might be able to help each other out. Call it a comfort thing. 

He whispered to me in the dark as he spooned behind me, "Tell me about you and Winchester."

Even with the blind drawn, I turned over to face him so that I couldn't be heard by anyone else. "Why?"

I could barely make out his face on the dark, but I could feel the tension permeating his Body. "Because I want to know."

I thought about it for a minute and figured it out. "You want to know if we have sex?"

If it was one thing I'd learned about men, it almost always was about the sex.

"Yes," his voice was strained.

"Honestly?"

"Honestly."

I explained to him our arrangement, leaving out the parts I thought Winchester wouldn’t want me to share, and that I was so in love with him I let him walk all over me.

"It's sad really. All these guys and I'm not getting any good sex," I tried to joke.

"That's not funny," he said and rolled away from me.

I was about to be offended until he reached back, grabbed my hand and pulled it around his waist so that I would move closer against him. I sighed against him, content for the moment anyway. I loved being in this position. I didn’t feel like I was the one being comforted, I was doing the comforting. 

Deep down, I knew I loved being Cas’s comfort as much as I thought I was Dean’s. 

And that night, I still didn't get much sleep.

Dean was looking at my tattoo and he finally said, "Have you ever seen Cas's back?"

"No."

"Look at it sometime," Dean stood in front of me our naked bodies grazing intimately. I kept my eyes fixed on his as he looked down into mine. I wanted him to tell me why. I wanted him to tell me the things I wanted to know but didn’t have the guts to force him to answer in case it pushed him completely away from me. Just as I was about to reach up and touch him, he brushed past me and dressed. Dean left his hotel room and that was my cue to get dressed and get out as well.

After Cas rolled over and he pulled me against him, I waited for him to fall asleep. I traced around the edges of the black tattoo on his neck and saw that there were tattoos underneath the hem of his shirt. I didn’t think Cas had tattoos on his back, but then I’d never seen him without a shirt on. Not even the one time at the waterpark. The sissy wore a bathing shirt. 

Slowly, carefully, as not to wake him, I slid his shirt up from the bottom hem and grabbed my cell phone for light.

I gasped when I saw it. The wings spanned across his back stretching over his shoulders and in the center was a heart of fire, with a long ribbon of music notes wound around them. 

I placed my hand over it and could feel Cas’s heartbeat underneath my hand.


	29. Part 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena finally comes to a big realization.

The night Cas kissed me the first time, the night Winchester proposed to the actress, was a bit of an awakening for me.

It took me a long time to realize that it was. I had done nothing different. I stayed in the same pattern with Dean. I didn’t force any changes in this “relationship” we were having. I did nothing but keep Cas at a distance. 

We were in the rain and I felt lost and broken and Cas had been there to keep me together, to keep me standing. He kissed me and I kissed him and instead of going back inside he took me back to the hotel. I was led to his room where we stopped to pick up his bag and then I was led back to my own room.

My mind was mostly blank, as I moved. I really wasn't very sure what else to do. He told me to go take a shower and get dressed. I don't think I worried about Cas and any expectations he had from me. He was just there and I was just getting from one moment to the next.

When I finally emerged from the bathroom in my soft clothes, I noticed he had changed into a t-shirt and sweats. But then turned back a side of the bed and tucked me inside. He crossed to the other side of the bed and lay on top of the covers. That's when I knew he was just going to be there. I think he knew that I just needed him to be there. He didn’t know what more to say than I knew how to process everything. But when I finally turned into him he snuggled against me.

I didn't cry, but I didn't open my eyes either. I knew if I looked in Cas's eyes and saw my own reflection in them, I wouldn't be able to bear what I saw there.

So his calloused fingers threaded through my hair and he soothed me the only way he thought he should.

"You deserve so much better, Lena."

And that was it. He spoke volumes to me in this one little sentence and the way we lay there most of the night barely speaking, barely touching.

It took a while for his words to sink in and for me to take their meaning to heart. I never said I was a genius. I might have some book smarts, but my emotional IQ is in the toilet.

In the end I knew he was right, but I decided I deserved better from Dean.

Way to use his encouraging words, right? I know. I cringe when I think about it. I wanted Dean to fess up and see that I was right in front of him. I wanted him to tell me I was beautiful because little by little I really started to believe it. I needed more and I wanted more… from him.

Looking back, this was an important point. I don’t think if Cas had been there, supporting me, keeping me together that I would have continued with this thing with Dean for so long. 

I was having one relationship with two men. 

Things that I couldn’t throw Dean’s way got pushed to Cas. And things that Dean couldn’t do, Cas did. It was the perfect set up as long as I let it continue, as long as I was content to be getting only so much from each man. 

I wasn’t though. I wasn’t content letting Dean use me. No matter what he said later, he was using me and I came to realize that. I wanted more from Dean and less from Cas and unfortunately it became a sore point between us. 

We were at a venue setting up early one morning. Winchester stole me away for a few minutes and the encounter left me feeling dizzy. I wasn’t feeling all that well before, but after I was definitely worse and Cas noticed.

He hovered around me the rest of the day asking if I was okay and offering to do my share of the haul. The final straw came when he basically commanded me to go lay down. 

“Lena. You look so ill. Go back to the dressing rooms, I’ll take care of this.” 

“Would you just leave me alone! I’d be a lot better if you weren’t in my face!” 

I hurt him with that, but it was gone from his face before I could regret my words. Instead he got angry and pulled me aside to whisper harshly in my ear, “If he won’t take care of you, then I will.” 

I ripped my arm away from him. “Why? Because that’s the little arrangement you two have between you? You think I don’t know that you’re the wing man just to keep me happy and keep me around?” 

I got him with that one. He was shocked. “Yeah, I heard that little convo between you. So quit pretending like you give a damn about me.” 

He stepped closer and there went all the air from my lungs, “What if I do?” 

He was still angry when he said it. Like no one could take away his right to care about me, no matter who I was supposedly “sleeping” with and no matter that it was his boss and his best friend doing both the “sleeping with” and hurting me. 

When my breath finally returned he was still standing extra close, but his breathing had evened and his nostrils had quit flaring. “How do I know you’re not just saying that to get your pay checks signed?” 

He turned away from me, and a day or two after that he left me alone. He didn’t leave me alone for long, never for long because he knew I needed him… and I did too. But at the time, part of me really believed that because I didn’t want to believe that he felt for me all that I wished Dean would. 

I figured it out though. I figured it out the hard way.


	30. Part 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena has a dangerous plan.

It was December and the wind was cold. 

We’d been through a lot. All of us. 

The week before the last show of the tour, Winchester and I had it out. He confessed as much as he was going to confess. But I still wasn’t satisfied. 

This isn’t that conversation. 

This was worse. 

I don't know why I didn't see it. I don't know why it wasn't so obvious to me. I've made guesses, drawn conclusions but in the end they are all nothing but pathetic excuses. 

I was a fool.

I decided to take matters into my own hands, finally. In my head, my plan made sense. If I could just loosen him up enough to let his inhibitions go, he would be able to feel. He'd be able to see that I loved him and he loved me.

I know. Trust me I know it sounds like I should have been committed.

Isn't it cliché for women to think like that about the men they love? But in reality, in the real world, men use women as means to an end, to inflate their egos, because they are bored and those are just the ways I've noticed. But I think us women are typically optimists. I think that we can feel things so intensely that we can only believe that who caused them should be able to reciprocate them.

I believed. I needed him to slip just once.

Even though I knew he was engaged, even though deep down I knew it would always be her over me, I had to try. I convinced myself I would for his sake. I was certain she'd never seen this side of him. I wondered what would happen to him then when he didn’t have this, when he didn’t have me.

So, the brilliant plan was to get him drunk. It wouldn't be the first time we'd messed around after a few drinks. Unfortunately, that's when he left the worst marks on my skin.

I employed one of the boys for their help. I needed his help, Dean never did his drinking with me unless it was from the mini bar in whatever hotel room we were in. I slipped Benny $20 after $20 telling him that I'd pay for his drinks too. Benny even kept him going after many of the other guys decided to bail.

I was nervous. I was taking a big risk and I knew that this was potentially dangerous. Not to mention wrong on so many levels. But I sucked down a few of my own shots of whiskey and set out to prove myself right.

Because I couldn't be wrong.

If I was... How much time had I wasted? How much pain had I suffered and all for naught?

I didn't think about that. I couldn't.

So when Benny signaled to me that he was indeed as done as he was going to get, I knew his head was starting to spin.

He stumbled once after standing from his bar stool and it looked as if Benny was just going to let him go down. Annoyed, I cut in, helped Benny walk Dean to the hotel elevators and said, "I’ll take it from here."

Dean didn't protest.

I decided that if he didn't ask me, I wouldn't stay. Call it my conscience piping up.

In front of his door, looking at me through heavy lids I couldn't read he said, "Stay."

"Okay."

We got inside his door and he pressed me up against the wall, his lips attacking me with weak vigor. I took the opportunity to start peeling off his clothes instead of being frozen inside my body like usual.

His hands couldn't handle the buttons on my shirt or my jeans while his lips found more of my flesh. I undressed him, pushing his jeans to the floor, and then wrapped my hand around his hard cock. It was about the only part of him able to stand on its own.

When we were finally stripped of our clothes I guided him back gently toward the bed. He sat heavily and looked up at me.

There. It was then I could see the hard wax starting to crack around this part of him he kept hidden away.

He was struggling. He was fighting so hard I pitied him and almost decided to scrap it all. I almost decided to just lay with him and hold him all night without saying a word like Cas had done for me.

I couldn't.

I whispered to him, "I love you."

He opened his mouth to protest weakly, but I just covered his mouth and kissed him. Then he kissed me back. It was the first time we'd kissed since the first time we met.

It was like his whole world crumbled and he was holding onto me for dear life. My hands cupped around his face and his hands rose to hold my elbows. In seconds he was pulling us back onto the bed.

We crawled back, with me climbing over top of him. I straddled his hips and pressed him against me. I couldn't help but shower kisses over him like I wanted to do a hundred times before whispering to him over and over, "I love you," so he could hear me. 

A single plea rose to his lips and I watched as his eyes begged for me, "Please Lena."

Those words, coupled with their meaning that I knew to the depths of my soul nearly shattered me in two leaving me a sobbing mess.

But I kept going and I moved carefully. I moved slowly letting him penetrate me. He felt so sweet and he held me over him like a true lover would.

I found his eyes, glassy as they may have been, but clear and true as he said, "I love you, Lena."

I know I cried out, as he thrust up into me then truly impaling me. He held my hips as our lips met and I rocked over him, slow at first and faster as he guided me.

I want to keep his gazed locked with mine, but I wanted to feel his lips, his tongue curled around mine as we were connected.

It was amazing. Unbelievable the connection we shared, the one I felt in my heart, my soul for him all this time.

I rode him harder and faster and he was panting in my ear. "Cum for me my Lena," he said sweetly and tears rolled down my face.

I couldn't believe it was happening. I felt the swell deep in my belly, the tension curl waiting for a sweet release. He cried out and it was my undoing. I felt the release fast and sure spread through my body as I continued to move over his hips. I felt like I was flying so high and I would never come down.

But I did. And I was met with the rudest awaking of my life. 

I opened my eyes and saw a pair of sparkling blue eyes. 

But by the time I realized I was seeing Dean's hazy grey eyes staring back at me... his name had already slipped from my lips.

“Cas.”


	31. Part 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena has an important conversation with Dean Winchester.

It was December and the wind was cold.

We’d been through a lot. All of us.

The week before the last show of the tour, Winchester and I had it out. He confessed as much as he was going to confess. But I still wasn’t satisfied.

This is that conversation.

We were... Where were we? Does it even matter anymore? It doesn't matter where or how the end result was always the same.

Dean on top of me or Dean behind me or Dean in my mouth.

We were all feeling the pressure as tour wound down. Dean was radiating a vibe that was almost unbearable. He gave the impression that he didn't want to go back to real life. Even though he had lots of people to write with, a new record to make, sponsors to make happy, he was still going to go home and be in one place... With the actress. With his fiancé.

We struggled this day, but only because I was putting up a fight. I wasn't being the rag doll, command and respond type this day. If he wanted to suck on my breast then I would run my fingers through his hair. If he rubbed his cock against my thigh, I would reach down circle him with my hand and stroke him. All things I wasn’t supposed to do. I had him so flustered he nearly slipped into me and that was the biggest no-no of all.

Finally he turned me over, lay against the whole length of my body and pinned my arms above my head.

"I thought we had an understanding," he growled into my ear.

"You had an understanding; I was doing you a favor by agreeing."

He twisted my wrists painfully and I cried out. So I voiced his one fear. "Go ahead Winchester, get it out of your system because in a week you're going back to the actress anyway."

"Shut up."

I kept going. I either had a death wish or I was really enjoying pushing his buttons.

"One week until you won't have me as your blow up doll anymore," I said mostly through gritted teeth because he held my wrists tighter.

"I said shut the fuck up," he nearly cried and before I knew it, he had my hips propped up and he was rubbing against me.

I let him go. He came all over my back and I cleaned up, only to sit on the bed just as he sat on the edge. It was our routine. It’s what we'd done since the beginning.

But instead of just sitting there, I curled up behind him, wrapped my arms around his waist and lay my head on his shoulder, and he let me.

"I’m worried about you," I said softly.

"Don’t be."

"But I am."

We were silent for several minutes, me holding him like that until I said quietly, "You can talk to me. I won't say anything."

That seemed to flip his switch, because he stood up and turned around, his fists clenched at his sides. "What do you think you are? I'm engaged for Christ sake!"

I braved up, "You're naked here with me and I love you."

He tensed up and turned away, "You think I don’t know that?!"

"So stay with me. I love you and I've seen you at your very worst. I've seen you at your very best and I love you anyway."

He didn't move. My words washed over him with a ripple down his spine.

"I think you love me too."

"Stop it Lena! Just fucking stop! I can't love you. I can't!" He wheeled around on me and I knew that he was saying what he was feeling after each and every time we were together.

"Why?"

"Because! This life that I lead is not my own! I'm owned by a record company and sponsors and PR people who shove down my throat who I am supposed to be. And who I am supposed to be is this saint, this all American Boy with the fiancé who looks like the girl next door... Not someone who looks like you. Do you know what they'd say Lena? They'd laugh at me and then tell the whole country I was single while you hid from paparazzi. That's reality Lena."

I couldn't breathe from the severity of the words that he spoke. But I could only think one thing.

"Do you love her?"

He laughed mirthlessly, "Does it matter?"

"To me it does."

His eyes softened just a touch, "And that can't matter to me. Why do you think I treat you like shit? I'm pushing you away, you stupid little girl, and here you still are!"

Tears started to slide down my cheeks. So that was the truth. In no uncertain words he had feelings for me but couldn't show them. He couldn't crack because he wasn't supposed to love someone like me.

"Your Body is… beautiful. And I... Can't help myself," he said self-loathingly. But I couldn't look at him anymore.

"And the tattoo makes you jealous," I said out loud with my eyes still cast away. I supposed that the tattoo was a symbol that Cas was allowed to have what he couldn’t.

"It was just easier to imagine you were Lisa," he whispered.

I couldn't say anything after that. It both hurt me and gave me hope.

He dressed but before he left the room, he turned to me, "Cas loves you."

"I don't want Cas. I want you,” I said a little too quickly.

He shook me off. "Someone like him deserves someone like you."

Then something curious happened. An animal woke in my chest and anger flooded my limbs. I took his words to mean that Cas deserved someone ugly like me someone that he could afford to parade around unlike him.

This should have been my first clue. I thought how dare he? He couldn’t say that about Cas, Cas deserves the very best.

I was seconds away from launching myself at Dean and defending Cas to the bitter end.

But I kept my mouth shut and became more determined to make Dean see that he could love me. I could make him see that we were meant to be together and he could forget about the record company, the paparazzi and especially his fake fiancé. He was mine and I could make him see. 

What did I tell you? I should have been committed.


	32. Part 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena's in trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Sexual violence, Violence

“Cas.”

I almost said his name again and then I stopped myself. Instead I looked around the dark hotel room half expecting to see him in a corner somewhere.

Dean was still under me, unmoving. I thought for a second he fell asleep, but I could never be so lucky.

I cast my eyes back down at him, his face was frozen in shock and hurt. This hurt him. Catastrophically.

“Wha..? What the fuck did you…? Fucking Cas?” His words were slurred I guessed from part alcohol, part in disbelief.

I stammered incoherently. I couldn’t even say what I thought I was about to say.

He half sat up to look closer into my face, “Is that it? You’ve been fucking Cas this whole time? You told me you weren't! I knew you were a filthy fucking lying bitch!”

I tried to spit out that I didn’t lie. I wanted to tell him that I never touched Cas, not intimately anyway. I wanted to tell him how incredibly sorry and confused and upset I was. I wanted him to understand the hell all of this had put me through, the courage I had to gain just to get him to this point… 

But I didn’t get a chance to say anything at all.

I couldn't see through the tears that were forming again in my eyes. I couldn't hear the anger that was screaming from his mouth and I never saw his fist coming before it connected with my head.

It sent me flying off of him. I managed to hang onto the edge of the bed before falling off as I cried out.

Flashing spots dotted my vision behind my eyelids and I didn't even have time to be scared out of mind. I was trying to defend myself against more blows to my head, some to my back.

Then there was a knock at the door. Dean paused and I thanked God. I prayed. I prayed whoever was at that door would save me. I felt Dean get off the bed, and I heard him go to the door.

That's when I passed out.

This is the part that always breaks me up. I relive these moments in my head more often than I'd like to. I lost and gained so much in the span of those 10 to 15 minutes.

That was the point that I knew that Dean Winchester would never love me for me. He would always see me on the outside and never for the person that I was. He never had a conversation with me. He never asked me about me. Hell, I didn’t even know if he knew my mother was dead. Cas was right. He... He hated me. He hated me for everything he lost and what he couldn’t have. 

I was devastated. After this point I knew that I could never trust Dean again. I was beaten to the point I probably should have been put in the hospital. I love Dean and a part of me always will. But I was in love with an image I conjured up. I was in love with a man I thought existed underneath this physical relationship we had. He had finally managed to snuff out any hope I had for us. 

And I was so stupid. How could I have ever been so blind? I didn’t deserve to be treated like that. How did I let Dean treat me so badly for so long? 

The answer? 

I lost myself. I forgot who I was. I may not have had everything figured out, but I was still someone. I was somebody’s someone. I was a daughter, a sister, a friend. I graduated with honors, I got a full ride through college. I have a mind for science and a big heart.

And I have people who love me.

My family.

And Cas.

When I came to, he was stooped over me. He was stooped over me, two medics were stooped over me along with the tour manager.

I was asked a ton of questions. When they tried to get me on a gurney, I said no way. Not a chance in hell I was going to the hospital. I didn't like hospitals anyway, but I didn't want to be asked anymore questions. I just wanted to be left alone. I was a victim. I was displaying typical behavior. 

Cas was brushing the hair away from my face and whispering in my ear, "Go Lena. Just go to make sure you're okay."

My eyes pled with him, "Please don't make me."

"The police are here, they want to ask you questions." One of the medics said.

I tried to move, but I was sore and I winced. I was sure I was fine physically. But emotionally… I couldn’t stop the words from leaving my mouth. "Where's Dean?"

"Off to the hospital. He won't hurt you anymore," Cas whispered to me.

My eyes met his and I knew. He made sure Dean wouldn’t hurt me again. 

"I want everyone out," I said forcefully. I was underneath a thin blanket, still naked. "Everyone get out so I can get dressed and talk to the police."

Everyone started to move away and I caught Cas's hand. "Stay."

There were so many emotions in his eyes at that moment. Once the room was clear he sat on the bed next to me and gathered me in his arms.

I knew then I would always be safe. The tears slipped down my face and I cried huge sobs of relief and regret.

And he says to me, "I’m so sorry Lena."

 _He apologized to me._

I shook my head against him and though I couldn't say it, I think maybe he knew anyway.

But I was sorry.

I was sorry for ignoring him, I was sorry for not seeing him. He was this angel among men, my protector, my… And I was sorry I was such a fool and hurt him. 

He held my hand as I told the officer what happened. I was adamant when I said I didn't want charges brought against him.

And they weren't.

I stayed on tour until the job was done and I didn't speak another word ever again to Dean Winchester.


	33. Part 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena remembers her first time(s).

I was 17 years old the first time I had sex. I'm not even sure I could call it sex, but I could definitely say I lost my virginity.

Karen, Karen who nearly killed me in a car accident, Karen invited me to every party she had until we graduated. I think she felt bad. Anyway, her parents went out of town one weekend and guess who had the party she wasn't supposed to have?

It quickly became a brothel, except no one was getting paid. There were teenagers tangled in each other in almost every corner of the house. I went into that party without a boyfriend, without a date, without as so much as someone I was interested in… until Bobby Correy smiled his wide metal smile at me. He caught me in the kitchen when I went to get a drink of water, when I wanted to escape the lip smacking sounds and soft sighs.

"So I was thinking," he said to me out of the blue. I hadn't talked to him since the 9th grade when he was in a group project with me. "I was thinking that you and me could go upstairs."

I looked at him steadily giving nothing away as I took a sip of water and said, "Okay."

It was the night before our last performance. We had two shows in the same venue back to back for the last two shows and as a special treat we stayed at a fancy hotel. All I could think was, thanks for holding out on us corporate.

That was the night Cas and I decided to share. Sure we shared nights together before, but not like this.

We checked into one hotel room that night, and either out of nervous energy or habit we showered separately. I’m not lying when I say we were a mess after the shows.

I decided to pull out a book to read while he showered, but I couldn't concentrate. It wasn't like we had openly discussed having sex, we just knew it felt right.

I heard him finish up so I just turned out the light and waited for him to emerge. He did, the steam and the light from the bathroom looking like he had a soft glow about him.

He climbed into bed and we lay facing each other. We lay there forever, not knowing what to say or how to get started. It didn’t help we were both still clothed.

"Take off your shirt," I finally said.

"You first," he smirked.

"No, let me see the tattoo on your back..."

I flipped the light on as his t-shirt came off and he sat forward so I could see it more clearly.

"This is beautiful," I said, tracing some of the outlines with my fingers.

"Do you see…?" he asked hesitantly. I knew immediately what he was asking.

"I see the resemblence... But..." I still wasn't sure when... "When did you get this?"

"Over a year ago."

"And mine?"

"I was stunned when you picked it and asked me to add to it. I just thought I'd draw you what I drew for me, and if you liked it, good. If not, I would have drawn you something else."

I leaned forward, took my fingers and tilted his face toward mine. I looked deep in those crystal blue eyes. "I love it," we smiled and then I pressed my lips to his.

Bobby and I found Karen's parents' bedroom. There was a door stop, so we shut the door and put the stopper in to keep from getting interrupted, or spied on or caught naked.

"I’m a virgin," I warned as we started stripping off our clothes.

“So am I,” he grinned back.

“I’m not doing anything unless you have protection.” I said before I was too naked.

“Oh, I do,” he nodded. He was still grinning and part of me thought I’d be a lot happier with this if his teeth didn’t sparkle.

I was naked before he was and I think he might have been a little more modest than me. It took him forever to get undressed even though I could clearly see his raging hard on way before he even touched his zipper.

I almost sat on the bed, but didn’t. If I were Karen’s parents, I wouldn’t want a couple of horny teenagers fucking on my bed. So I said, “We should do it on the floor. It’s a nice plush carpet, I would hate to…”

“Yeah sure,” he said as he unwrapped his condom.

I went ahead and sat down on the floor and when he finally had himself covered he lowered himself over me.

It was THEN that it occurred to me that I shouldn’t be doing this. I should be waiting to have sex with someone who was special. Someone I cared about who cared about me. I’ve seen enough after school specials to rival the number of Disney films there are. Looking into Bobby’s hungry eyes I kind of knew that that wasn’t going to happen for a long time and I hate to say that curiosity got the best of me.

“Let me know if I hurt you,” he said.

“Oh, you better believe…” Then I felt his fingers on me, then in me. And for a little while it felt good.

“I heard I had to do this first,” he said almost shaking.

“No, That’s nice.” I smiled reassuringly at him.

He withdrew his fingers and then started poking me with his dick. About the 5th time I winced and said, “You could guide it in there…”

“Oh, yeah…” His dark brown hair fell over his forehead as he searched, and finally, he was in.

He pushed and groaned above me.

It only hurt a little, and the more he pushed and pulled, the easier it became and the better it felt. His eyes were mesmerized by my breasts that bounced gently with each push. He kept licking his lips and I knew he wanted to suck on one, but was too afraid to ask. I didn’t think he wanted to ruin this shot he going for him now.

I swear it was a minute later he was panting above me, “Oh God, I’m gonna cum… are you…”

I thought it was nice that he actually considered me, but I waved a hand and said, “No, go ahead and enjoy yourself.” 

Cas had strong arms. I knew that because as soon as my lips touched his, they folded around me and pulled me over onto his lap. My arms slid around his neck and my fingers snaked up into his black hair gripping anxiously. I felt fluttery and nervous but his kisses were soft and smooth and put me at ease right away. His tongue searched for mine patiently, perfectly. Our lips melded together and I felt like crying.

My stomach dropped and tied in knots and tears were streaming down my face. I wanted to pinpoint the feeling. I didn’t want to miss anything with Cas. I wanted to share everything with him, including my bizarre fear of asparagus.

So when he saw my tears and kissed them away and said, "Tell me..." I wanted to tell him that I had been on a very long journey. I’d been through the desert and over the mountains. It was a journey that left me exhausted and literally battered. I wanted to tell him that finding him was like finding and sinking into that couch at your grandmother's house that reminds you that you can always come back.

So I told him, "I'm home."

He smiled his smug smile and nodded. His lips captured mine and after that we undressed slowly. His skin felt like fire underneath my hands as his lips tickled over my skin. He sighed and groaned as he pleasured me. Sometimes he chuckled deeply if a reaction I had amused him.

His eyes found mine before it was time to go any further and he asked, "Are you sure you're okay to do this?"

I thought it was a strange question to ask until I thought about all I'd been through. But then I remembered the brief anxiety I had...

"If you were anyone else, maybe not. But you are you. And I want to. I want this. I want you."

He bowed his head for a moment and I couldn't see the emotions on his face. When he lifted back up, there were traces of tears in his eyes and his cheeks were blotchy red. That's when he kissed me deeply, passionately until he slid into me.

It was sweeter than anything I'd ever felt and I couldn't get enough. I wrapped my legs around him guiding him deeper, holding him closer.

He laid over me, his face pressed against my neck, his lips caressing my skin there. "Oh Lena," he murmured to me. Over and over saying my name and I had never felt so loved in all my life.

I think... I think we wanted to tell each other then how much we meant to each other, but we never did say it.

We didn't need to. We just felt it.

We came together in a rush of emotion I'd never felt before. I felt everything as he pulsed inside me and caused the exquisite explosion I felt all through me down to the very tips of my toes.

So _this_ is what it was supposed to be like?

Bobby twitched and sputtered inside of me as I waited patiently for him to finish. I'd had real sex with boys since and even then, those experiences were only a few notches above my first time. I know now there was nothing any of them could have said or done that could have made me feel the way Cas did that night over and over and over again.

And with Cas, I never felt more beautiful.


	34. Part 34

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena tells about a surprise visitor.

The news spread. People talked. Official word was that Dean's blood pressure spiked and he blacked out causing the bruise on his cheek. It was never released that he had a lacerated spleen and a nice purple bruise on his abdomen… so no story was released for that.

I kept my head down and minded my own business. There was still just a few days left of the tour, 3 shows total, and I was determined to finish it out. I was approached by “the powers that be” to leave my position and take a pay cut and I told them that unless they were prepared to give me a much bigger settlement that I’d just rather serve my time and fulfill my contract. They saw things my way. 

Even though I did my work peacefully, I still felt the stares everywhere I went. I’m sure it had something to do with the 6 feet tall black haired man with multiple piercings and tattoos following me everywhere I went. Cas never left my side after that night. If he had something to do, I went with him. If I had something to do Cas was with me. I think part of him was protecting me, I think the other part was him making sure that me not going to the hospital didn’t come around to bite me in the ass. The other part of me thought he was making Dean stay true to his word. 

He told me later, much later that he threatened Dean that night I was passed out on the floor beside the bed. He told Dean that if he ever caught him looking at me again he'd choke him with his own guitar strings. I've never seen Cas that pissed off, and I don't think I ever want to.

The thing is, when tour was over Cas and I said goodbye. But we weren't sad and we didn't make any plans either. I think we knew that our paths would cross again. After tour we just needed to go home and decompress. We needed to leave the stigma behind. We needed to get back to our lives if only for a moment before finding each other. 

So I went home to the little house in the trailer park. Chuck, Dad and I had the best Christmas we'd had in years. I made more baked goods than should be allowed by law. It was special and magical and it made me appreciate everything I had in my life instead of the things I went without.

It took only 3 days for me to feel like tour was 100 years behind me.

The 27th of December came and I needed to go shopping for some things. I was out most of the day buying cute frilly shirts, fitted jeans, shoes I would have never thought to buy in a million years. I even stopped in to see Ty, get my hair done and spill to him all that happened in the previous weeks.

"Lena honey, I need to give you a haircut to match the sparkle in your eyes!"

I chuckled at him, "I don't even know if I'll see him again!"

"Oh you will," he assured. "You will!"

He transformed my thick blond locks by thinning them out, giving me a thick set of bangs and a cut that framed my face. He even gave me plenty of low lights to make my hair look more bronze which didn’t wash out my complexion. When he was done I felt like a new woman and wondered why I never let him do that before.

I returned to Dad and Chuck acting very unusual that afternoon. They paid me plenty of compliments and reassured me that my Christmas present was coming along; they just needed a day or two more to see to final details.

I just smiled, shrugged and said okay. If it was taking them this long, it had to be something that meant a lot to them.

The following day I was baking again and it was sometime in the afternoon. Chuck was begging for another pan of frosted brownies. I said okay as long as he shared them with his buddies, because he'd already managed to eat a pan by himself since I'd been home.

I was just finished with frosting the pan when the doorbell rang.

Chuck called out, "Could you grab that, it's probably just Zach!"

As I opened the door, I was just going to take a lick of frosting off the spoon I was holding, when I finally noticed who was standing on our front porch.

"You're not really going to lick all that in front of me are you?"

I'm pretty sure the spoon fell from my hand to clatter to the floor before I wanted to be swallowed up by it.

"Cas," I practically squealed.

He looked good. Oh fuck, he looked like a mirage in the middle of the desert, and angel in a bright blue sky. So I just stood staring.

He chuckled nervously, "Are you going to invite me in?"

I finally snapped out of it. If he knew that this was where I lived, then I might as well accept him in completely and show him around. Not that there was much to see. 

I introduced him to Chuck since dad was at work and not much later Chuck excused himself to his work shed and told me to share his brownies with Cas.

I cut the brownies, put one on a plate and gave him a glass of milk as we sat at the kitchen table. It was strange seeing him there in my tiny little house. It was like seeing a character from one of your story books appear in your kitchen. But now that we could have a private conversation I was dying to know, "Why are you here?"

"I wanted a really good brownie," he groaned when he took his second bite.

"No, I mean..."

He cut me off and looked at me, really looked at me. "I came here for you."

I could have died. I could have kissed him. I could have kissed him and then died. Instead I just propped my chin on my hand and smiled.

"Where are you staying?"

"At the motel around the corner."

"For how long?"

He shrugged his shoulders and said, "However long it takes."

"For what?!" I was getting really impatient. Here I could wait forever for this huge gift Chuck and Dad were preparing for me, but I could be patient with him. It’s funny how that works out. 

He finished his brownie and drained the milk from the glass I gave him.

He gave me his half amused smug grin I loved so much. "Until you agree to go back home with me for a visit. My mom is dying to meet you."


	35. Part 35

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena finally gets her Christmas present.

I am pretty sure I gaped at him. I couldn’t process the information. He shows up at my door ready to take me home and meet his mom? Seriously?

I started panicking. I didn’t know if I could. I didn’t know if I was ready. 

“Oh Cas… I just… I don’t know…” 

He nodded calmly, coolly. “I thought you’d say that.” 

I cocked my head at him then, in awe that he just knew this much about me. We were in another time, another place so far away from tour and he still – he still just gets me. 

So he says, “It’s okay. I’m actually needed around here for the next day or two.” 

“Do you have some gigs to play?” 

“No, I was enlisted by your brother and father yesterday. I showed up here and you were out.” 

I’m pretty sure my eyes popped out of my head. 

“You were here yesterday?” 

“Oh yeah.” He nodded. “Chuck asked if I was your boyfriend, and I said ‘kinda, yeah…’” His admission made us both blush, “and Chuck yelled through the house, ‘Dad! She’s got a boyfriend!’” Mocking Chuck perfectly, “and so they enlisted me to help.” 

I was still a bit stunned, but I asked, “Help with what?” 

He cocked his head and grinned that I hadn’t figure it out yet. “Your Christmas present.” 

“Not you too! Why is everyone in on this except me?!” 

“Because. It’ll be good. Great. Wonderful. You’ll cry.” I didn’t say anything, just watched his eyes sparkle. That’s when I figured it out that when he was planning something, those crystal blue eyes sparkled. 

He pushed back from the table and said, “Come here,” patting his thigh. 

I got up and sat on his lap as if I’d done it a million times. His arms went around my waist, mine around his shoulders and it was like looking at each other with new eyes. 

This was the beginning. Whatever this was, where ever it went, this was the beginning. 

He reached up, tucked a bit of my hair behind my ear and said, “I know it’ll be uncomfortable for you, but I want you to come with me back home. But, if you want to wait to see this present, I won’t mind. I think you’ll be ready after that.” His eyes were so sincere, so warm, I couldn’t help but smile back. 

It was then I kissed his warm lips and waited. I think part of me thought it was all a dream. I thought somehow, finally, giving him that kiss would break the magic spell cast over us for just a short period of time. He would surely disappear as soon as it was over. 

But he didn’t. I lifted up and he was still there, I was still there and it was perfect. He was perfect.

Cas floated in and out over the next few days having meals with us and then excusing himself to do Chuck and Dad’s bidding for this Christmas gift I had yet to receive. Part of me was beginning to think it didn’t exist. Maybe they had ruined whatever it was in the process and there was nothing to be given and now they were scrambling. 

I made guesses over those two days. “Is it a shoe horn? Is it a toaster? Is it a new car?” All of my attempts met with a no, as if they’d ever tell me. 

It was December 30th and though I chose to spend the night with Cas at the motel, we returned to the house early the next morning for breakfast. Cas and Chuck had some kind of conversation through gestures and head bobs leaving me out completely. 

It was then I really understood that Cas blended with them perfectly. He was like the long lost brother Chuck never had. When dad was around, it was like Dad had gained a new best friend. Part of me just couldn’t believe, but then I shouldn’t have been so surprised. 

Anyway, the point of the conversation was that my gift was finally ready. 

“You have to wait until Dad gets home, he’d kill us if we did it without him,” Chuck said to me. So all day I paced and baked and played video games with the guys. 

Dad didn’t even come in the house when he got home, he threw open the door and said, “Okay! Let’s go!” 

Confused, I was ushered out to his car. Once Dad was driving again, “Where are we going?!” 

They all just grinned at me. 

We took a 20 minute car ride and we finally arrived at a cute little condominium complex. Dad found a parking spot and they all piled out… well as piled as we could get. We helped Chuck into his wheelchair and it seemed they all knew where they were going except me. 

So I stopped and just looked at them. “Are you going to tell me what this is all about?” 

Cas grabbed my hand and said, “We have to show you.” 

I was pulled toward the condos, and Chuck had no problem navigating the sidewalks until we happened upon a door. Instead of knocking on it, Dad held out a key. 

“This is for you.” 

I looked at all their faces, all bright and expectant. 

“What?” 

I think they all started laughing until Cas whispered to me, “Lena, take the key and open the door.” 

I took the key defiantly, getting a little miffed that the joke was lost on me. I opened the door and we walked inside, and it was fully furnished. This was someone’s apartment… “Is this your place?” I looked at Cas. 

“No, it’s ours.” 

I couldn’t tell you what I was feeling at that moment. I just looked around. He kept a firm grip on my hand as I wondered around aimlessly. Looking at the furniture they’d brought in. Some pictures from home they put up on the walls. Even back in the bedroom they’d brought a lot of my stuff since I spent the night at the motel. Plus, not lost on me were stamps of Cas all over the place. 

I was shocked and awed. Speechless. I was feeling a million emotions all at once and I just didn’t know what to say. But it wasn’t until I saw this one particular thing, the one picture of my mother I kept beside my bed standing alone in the corner of my kitchen counter, did I finally lose it. 

I collapsed to Cas’s chest and just wept, and I think they all did too. 

Dad started, “It was time you started your life Lena. It’s time you had your own home. We’d been working on this for weeks, but we couldn’t find the right place that was accessible enough for Chuck so he could visit and who would let us sign a lease for you.” 

Chuck continued, “So it was kind of perfect that Cas showed up. Because we kinda figured that… he made the difference.” 

Cas continued, as he rubbed at my back, “I knew after a few days of me being around, you wouldn’t mind. And if you did, I was going to say too bad… You’re moving in with me anyway.” 

I chuckled then, and lifted my mess of a face to look around at all of them, “This is for… us?” 

“Mostly you though.” Cas smiled at me. 

I had so many questions for Cas. What about his life? What about his home? What about his career? 

Those questions would eventually get answered. I would realize that they gave me a gift much bigger than just an apartment. They gave me my life. They gave me Cas and sense of myself I never had before. 

That night as we lay in _our_ bed in _our_ home for the first time, I circled my arms around Cas’s neck and said, “Let’s go see your mom.”


	36. Part 36

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena talks about mushy, fluffy love stuff.

We were on a plane very early the next morning headed for Nashville. We would spend New Year’s Eve somewhere in Nashville, possibly with his mom. I had no idea. He was handling all the details and I just went with it. He couldn’t have let me down even if he tried. 

His mother lived in a rougher neighborhood than I imagined and she lived in a tiny white house which looked barely bigger than the house in the trailer park. Apparently he had grown up here too. 

His mother greeted us warmly at the door. She was just this tiny little thing with short spiky pepper colored hair and a nose piercing. Her live in boyfriend’s name was Roy and he was a big boisterous motorcycle man who was hilarious and got along well with everyone.

I learned later that Cas grew up without a father, but that his mother always encouraged him to do whatever it was he wanted to do. Roy had been in her life for a couple years, and though he didn’t think they’d get married, they’d probably be together for a long time. 

His mother was nothing like my mother, but she was wonderful. We talked for a long time that night, just about me and my life and of course she had to share stories about Cas when he was younger. 

(Insert a lot of Cas blushing here.)

There was one moment though, and I don’t think I’ll forget it as long as I live. She paid Cas a compliment, and I can’t remember exactly what it was because I was too busy just watching Cas. It was something about him having nerves of steel and this big squishy heart, but then he says, “Thanks mom.” 

That’s it, just “Thanks mom,” but there was so much love and appreciation in his eyes when he said it, like he knew his mother was this special person that he could never replace. I didn’t know if all men felt that way about their mothers but he did for his. 

And that’s when I knew I loved Cas beyond a shadow of doubt. I wanted to say something to tell him right at that moment, but the house was full of New Year’s Eve guests and it just wasn’t the time. 

Before midnight, he grabbed my hand and said, “Come with me, I have some place to show you.” 

We got in his rental and headed straight out of town leaving the lights far behind us. 

We finally pulled off the highway, drove a little further and parked a few minutes before midnight. It must have been a state park because there wasn’t much around, just a clearing and trees, a few park benches and dormant flower beds. 

“This isn’t the exact spot, but it’ll do,” he said. 

We walked to the middle of the field and looked up. The sky was dotted with a thousand stars and it took my breath away, but it could have been that Cas was so close. 

“This is amazing,” I said. It was a chilly night, but not unbearable and I’d never seen so many stars in the sky. I wondered if he knew my New Year’s Eve tradition, but I’d never told anyone for him to find out. I wondered if it was just one of those things…

He didn’t say anything; just let me enjoy the view. “Your mom is amazing,” I said without really thinking. I felt like I was being drawn to something. 

“She is. I’ve been really fortunate.” 

I didn’t know what to say, what to feel, because for that one moment in time I felt numb. 

But then I realized all I had to do was feel. I’d spent so long pushing things away, pushing feelings away, pushing people away and I’d been so wrong. 

I had been given a gift, a heaven sent gift, and he was standing a few feet away from me. 

A minute later his arms were around me, tears cascading down my face, after his beautiful wings comment. It was so true. We all did have wings. We just had to remember we had them.

“I miss her so much.” 

I was doubled over so far, but I remember the warmth of his forehead touching the middle of my back. 

“I know,” he said holding me tighter. “I know.” 

I finally straightened back up and turned around in his arms. He cradled my head against his chest and we stood there until I could breathe normally again. 

But it wasn’t just about my mom. It wasn’t just about his. It was about how this holiday season was so filled with Christmas miracles for me. The kind of miracles I thought about as a child sitting in the glow of a Christmas tree. The kind of miracles that change you, that change your life so much that when the dawn of a New Year comes you can’t help but believe your life is going to change. 

I pulled back to look up at him. “I love you. I just love you so much.” 

It was so easy to say because I think I always had loved him, just like I think he had always loved me. 

“I love you too, Lena.” 

He kissed me, his thumbs wiping away my tears. He didn’t pull away completely, but rest his forehead against mine, “I know I’m not front man material. I’m just a man who loves music who loves to play, and I don’t offer much beyond that…” 

I interrupted him then. “Don’t you dare. You are the most beautiful, amazing man I know. To me… you’re my angel.” 

He smiled then, as if it was hard for him to take the compliment but then he said, “You’re the most beautiful woman I know and I never, ever want you to forget it.” 

His hand reached into his pocket and he pulled out a black velvet box. 

I’m pretty sure I gasped. “Oh Cas…” I breathed. It couldn’t be what I thought it was… 

He opened it and two diamond studs twinkled up at me. “I knew I had to show you before you had a heart attack…” He chuckled. 

He took them out and he put them in my ears, then he kissed my forehead. 

“You just gave me these because your holes are all filled up,” I winked at him. 

“Too true,” he smiled back. “I do love you though. I have for a while.” 

“I know. I’m sorry it took so long for me to come around.”

He pulled me back in his arms, kissed me deeply and said, “Don’t ever be sorry. Be glad you’re here.” 

I smiled up at him because I knew we had probably passed into the New Year in each other’s arms. “Oh Mr. Novak, I am more than glad to be anywhere in the world with you.”


	37. Part 37: The End

That was last New Year’s Eve. It’ll be New Year’s Eve again in a few days. It’s been a year since tour ended. 

I needed to do this. I needed to tell my story because a part of me wanted to see how far I’d come. These were the lowest points in my life. I made very big mistakes and kept making them, and I wanted to know why. I wanted to know why I didn’t see. Why was I so careless and stupid and foolish? 

In the past year I’ve learned a few things. 

No one is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. There is not a person on this planet who has looked at something they’ve done in their past and not cringed. We are human. “To Err is human,” is what Cas quotes to me. All those mistakes I made because I was selfish. I was either only thinking of myself or I let myself be so consumed by something it didn’t let me think clearly. Or at all. 

I learned to be more trusting and open to people. I found the more I opened up, the more people opened up to me. I feel like I have this wonderful circle of friends now who I can count on who can count on me. 

I learned not to take myself so seriously. I thought that life had to be definable, this tangible thing in order to be able to feel validated or have a purpose. But I think as long as I’m living a life where I feel fulfilled, where I feel loved, where I can be comfortable being me… then that’s all the validation I need. 

So I’ve learned. And I’ll continue to learn.

Cas wants to ask me to marry him. I know he does because he told me. He tells me everything. 

But I wanted to do this first. I wanted to write all these things out I wanted to be able to have closure with this part of my life and I felt writing it all out was the only way to go. Cas has read most of this, all except the last few entries. A lot of it tore him up, but part of it was as much his story as it was mine. We’ve talked about a lot of the entries, some of them more than once. Some of them we’ll continue to talk about as we grow and our perspectives change. I want him to understand as much as he wants to understand. 

My plan was, that after we went through this, then he could ask me to marry him and I would be able to say yes with clear eyes and a full heart. 

We talked about Chuck at one point this year, when Cas came upon that entry. I explained to Cas that I didn’t know if Chuck ever knew and if I finally did tell him, would he hate me? 

Cas’s answer: “Ask him and find out.” 

So I did. One afternoon I went to Dad and Chuck’s house and we had a conversation that started like this: 

“Chuck, I have something to tell you, and I understand if you would hate me the rest of my life once I finish telling you.” Chuck scoffed at me, but then I began. “That afternoon you wrecked the four-wheeler I tampered with it.” 

Chuck’s next statement nearly made me pass out. 

“Oh, I know.” He said it as a matter of fact. He said it like it was ancient history. 

“We got out to the fields that day and I saw the damage. I knew you were the only person who had access who would do it. So before I did any riding, I had to repair the damage. I was pretty sure I got all of it. I never blamed you for the accident. Eventually I made with peace with myself that if I got on a four-wheeler that I didn’t repair very well, then it was my own damn fault for being stupid and riding it anyway. My point is… I knew better. And I never blamed you.” 

I know I spent the rest of the afternoon a sobbing mess over him, and he said to quit crying over him and fix him up with some of my new friends. I’m happy to say he’s dating a girl who absolutely adores him and I think they’ll be getting ready to announce they’re moving in together sometime soon. But she just fawns over him and it’s the greatest thing to see him so happy. 

As for Dean… after the tour he went home to his fiancé, but broke off the engagement not more than a few months later. All the people who worked with him on that tour wouldn’t work with him anymore. They never explained why, they just didn’t and that included Cas. 

Cas and I still live in Southern California. He has plenty of contacts and people both here and in Nashville who he works with regularly. He will soon be putting out an instrumental album that is purely his brain child. It’s breathtaking and I’m not just saying that because he makes me. He takes me with him wherever he goes explaining that I’m his sound bitch and “Hey, at least I save money.”

I just roll my eyes and grin. 

I once asked myself what part of Cas had I been missing. I was missing the part that shared a life with me where we could openly love each other. I was missing the part that loved to make me happy and the part where I made him happy.

I was missing the best part.

Cas is sitting in the chair across the room right now, just waiting for me to finish. And in true Cas fashion is making lewd gestures at me. He knows this is it. He knows this is the end. When I say it’s done he’s going to rip this from my hands, read it as fast as he can, take the solitaire from his pocket I know he’s had since September and ask me to marry him. 

I’m going to say yes. 

Because Castiel James Novak, 

I love you. You are the ketchup to my bologna. The grape jelly to my peanut butter, yes grape. ;) My knight in shining guitar strings. You make everything seem possible and nothing seem like everything. You made me blossom in the darkest of my days and gave me wings when mine were gone. You’re my angel, my gift and I will love you forever. 

I think we’ve waited in the wings long enough, my love; it’s time for us to fly.


End file.
